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A TOUR OF AMERICA'S 
NATIONAL PARKS 




Early Morning at 
Going-to-the-Sun Chalet 



A Tour of America's 
National Parks 

By 

HENRY OTTRIDGE REIK 

Lt.-Col. Medical Reserve Coeps, United States Aaarr 

With Illustrations from Photographs 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 






Copyright 1920 
Bj E. P. Button & Company 



AU Right* Btaerved 



Printed to the United 
Statea of America 



OCT 13 1920 
g)C!.A597789 



Dedicated to 

STEPHEN T. MATHER 

HORACE M. ALBRIGHT 

ROBERT S. YARD 

Who, 

Under instructions from the 

HON. FRANKLIN K. LANE, 

Secretary of the Interior, 

Are striving to make American Scenery 

available to the People 



PREFACE 

THE purpose of this book is to attract a 
more wide-spread attention to the won- 
derful natural beauty of our own country; to 
point out the possibilities of a "Grand Tour,'* 
here at home, that shall embrace more of scenic 
beauty and more marvelous natural phenom- 
ena than was ever included in a "Grand Tour 
of Europe"; to make clear to those who have 
but a limited vacation period what is to be seen 
in the different Parks, and how best to see it. 
It is not a Guide Book in the ordinary sense, 
yet it is intended to serve as such; for it not 
only indicates the proper procedure for making 
the "Grand Tour," but presents specific in- 
formation about the most important things to 
see and the order in which they should be seen 
in each individual Park. 

The United States of America possesses the 
most remarkable series of public play -grounds 
in all the world. These, the so-called National 



Parks, are maintained "For The Benefit And 
Enjoyment Of The People." No two of these 
parks are alike. They are not comparable. 
In fact, they scarcely resemble one another 
at all. Each is possessed of some character- 
istic feature that makes it individually worth 
seeing. Every citizen should become inti- 
mately acquainted with as many of them as his 
time and purse will permit and every one may 
feel well assured in advance that he will be 
fully repaid for the labor and expense involved 
in visiting either of these Parks. 

Henry O. Reik. 



COIVTENTS 

Poem: Out Among the Big Things. 
Chapter 

^' ^"^yZir "^^^ ^''^''° ^''''^ °'' ^""^ National 

II. The Rocky Mountain National Park- In- 
cluding EsTEs Park and the Parks in and 
about Denver. 

III. Mesa Verde National Park; Home of the 

Cliff Dwellers. 

IV. The Grand Canyon op Arizona; with Inci- 

dental Visits to the Old Indian Pueblos 
of New Mexico and the Petrified Forest. 

V. Sequoia National Park; the Prospects of a 
New Park that Shall Excel Some of the 
±SEST Now Developed. 

VI. YosEMiTE Valley; the Region of World- 

Jf AMED JDEAUTY. 

VII. Crater Lake National Park; an Extraordi- 
nary Lake Occupying the Crater of an 
±.XTiNCT Volcano and Whose Water Is of 
AN Unbelievable Blue. 

yilL Mt Rainier National Park. "The Moun- 
tain That Was God." 



CONTENTS 

IX. Glacier National Park. Rugged Mountain 
Scenery of Alpine Character, with In- 
numerable Active Glaciers. 

X. Yellowstone National Park. A Veritable 
Fairyland. More Geysers Than in All 
THE Rest of the World Together; Beside 
Many Other Curious and Weird Phe- 
nomena Produced by Subterranean Heat. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Early Morning at Going-to-the-Sun Chalet. 

Frontispiece in Colors 

Facing Page 

Minnehaha of the Aspens, Rocky Mountain 

National Park 22 

Loch Vale, Rocky Mountain National Park . 30 

Cliff Palace, the Largest of the Cliff 

Dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park . 42 

Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde National 

Park 50 

Grand Canyon from Mojave Point .... 56 

Adobe Houses in the Indian Pueblo of 

Tesuque, New Mexico 58 

Hopi Indians Decorating Pottery .... 62 

View of Canyon and River 66 

"Wawona," the Tunneled Giant Redwood of 

the Yosemite 74 

El Capitan and the Merced River, Yosemite 

Valley 82 

Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite National Park . 90 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

El Capitan in Wintkr 98 

Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park . . . 100 

The Phantom Ship, Crater Lake National 

Park 110 

Crater Lake Trout , 114 

Through the Fir Forest to Mt. Rainier Na- 
tional Park 122 

Glacial Creek, Mt. Rainier National Park . 130 

Afloat on Two-Medicine Lake, Glacier Na- 
tional Park 146 

On the Trail, Glacier National Park . . . 164 

Hymen Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yel- 
lowstone Park 162 

Old Faithful Geyser 186 

Black and Brown Bears in Yellowstone Park 194 

Grand Canyon and Great Falls of the Yel- 
lowstone 202 



A TOUR OF AMERICA'S 
NATIONAL PARKS 



INTRODUCTION 

BEFORE the world war, hundreds of 
thousands of Americans not only knew 
all about the Grand Tour of Europe, but were 
more or less thoroughly acquainted with par- 
ticular foreign countries, even to remote sec- 
tions possessing scenic, historic, or other points 
of interest. On the other hand, the scenic and 
historic places in the United States were 
known only to comparatively few travelers of 
the country at large and to residents of the 
communities immediately adjacent to them. It 
was with profound surprise, therefore, that 
when war closed Europe to American tourists, 
they, in looking about for places to visit on this 
continent, found in the western mountain 
ranges a chain of national parks set apart by 
Congress to be maintained forever in their 
natural state for the benefit and pleasure of 
the people. 



2 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

They had heard perhaps of Yellowstone and 
Yosemite Parks, but these places were rather 
more associated with geysers, enormous water- 
falls, and other remarkable phenomena to be 
hurriedly glimpsed as they might look at the 
Woolworth Building in New York than with 
the idea of great national playgrounds, estab- 
lished and maintained as a part of a system 
which is to furnish recreational, educational, 
and health restoring advantages for us and 
for generations yet to come. Even the Yel- 
lowstone and Yosemite were visited each year 
by a mere handful of people, most of whom 
lived in the States in which the parks are 
located or in neighboring States. 

The process of introspection which Ameri- 
cans were forced to use in planning their va- 
cations in 1915 and 1916, aided by unceasing 
publicity work by the Department of the In- 
terior and by the transcontinental railroads, 
developed in the public consciousness a pretty 
complete realization of what the national park 



INTRODUCTION 8 

system was. In those two years travel to the 
parks increased by leaps and bounds, and even 
during our participation in the war the parks 
were visited each year by 200,000 more people 
than toured them in 1914. This year there is 
every prospect that national park travel will 
break all previous records by a very great 
margin.^ 

The national park system is frequently 
called "The Incomparable Circle." This is be- 
cause the largest of the scenic parks are so 
situated in the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra 
Nevadas, and Cascades that they form points 
on an imaginary circumference with Salt 
Lake City approximately the center of the 
circle. The parks in this chain alone form 
the greatest and most remarkable group of 
natural wonders on the face of the earth, as 
well as the most beautiful and varied scenery 
the world affords. 

1 Since this foreword was written the travel records for 
1919 have been compiled. They show that 755,325 people 
visited the parks during the tourist season, while the travel 
in 1918 totaled 451,691. 



4 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

The distinctiveness of the national parks is 
worthy of especial comment. There is no 
place in this or in any other country where 
there are so many geysers, hot springs, and 
other manifestations of the action of subter- 
ranean heat on the earth's surface as in Yel- 
lowstone National Park, and yet these features 
are only a few of scores of remarkable works 
of nature in this one reservation. In the entire 
world, there is no other valley so beautiful as 
the Yosemite, with its waterfalls, its domes, 
ils spires, and its towers, and yet it has a back 
country with mountain scenery that is second 
to none. 

The Grand Canyon National Park contams 
the gorge that represents nature's greatest 
work of water erosion. It is thirteen miles 
across this yawning chasm and it is a mile 
deep. Its wonders and its gripping charms 
have defied description in written or spoken 
words and even the painter and photographer 
have failed to give those who have not beheld 



INTKODUCTION 6 

this stupendous spectacle even a remote con- 
ception of what it really is. 

In Sequoia and General Grant National 
Parks the giant sequoia grows — oldest and 
largest of living things. Sequoia National 
Park also has high scenic regions of such 
magnificence that Congress is considering the 
advisability of adding certain other mountain 
territory, including Mt. Whitney, the highest 
point in the United States, and dedicating this 
enlarged park as a great memorial to the late 
Theodore Roosevelt, giving to it his name. 

Oregon's representative in the park system 
is Crater Lake and the surrounding moun- 
tainous region. Crater Lake is situated in 
the crater of an extinct volcano. Its surface 
is 1000 feet below the rim and its blue color 
has no equal in the waters of the earth, and, 
it is a spectacle of sublimity that holds one 
spellbound. 

Mount Rainier, in Washington, has the 
largest single peak glacier system of which 
we have record. The reservation is also known 



6 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

as the "Wild Flower Park" because between 
the great glaciers wild flowers grow in such 
profusion that they alone are sufficient to lure 
and hold the interest of the visitor. 

Glacier and Rocky Mountain National 
Parks sit astride the Rockies and exhibit the 
most remarkable evidences of glaciation that 
has carved the mountains into scenery than 
which there is no more sublime and thrilling 
on the globe. In the former the glaciers have 
performed their sculpturing in ancient sedi- 
mentary rocks thrust up and over on the plains 
by some tremendous cataclysm within the 
earth; while in Rocky Mountain Park the ice 
has carved in solid granite. Hence these 
parks, while somewhat similarly formed, are 
vastly different in the character of scenery 
they exhibit. 

The remaining member of this park chain 
is Mesa Verde, where the largest and best pre- 
served of all the cliff dwellings are to be found. 
This is the land of romance and charm that 
grips your very soul and you leave it with 



INTRODUCTION 7 

greater reluctance than you feel when depart- 
ing from any other park. 

This is "The Incomparable Circle" that 
Colonel Reik knows and loves. He was one 
of the first Americans to see it in its larger 
aspects and to comprehend it in its full impor- 
tance to the Nation of today and tomorrow. 
He has ridden over the automobile roads of 
the parks and he has tramped their trails. He 
knows the beauties of the remote places as 
well as those that are easily accessible. He 
has photographed the parks, using natural 
color processes with unusual success, and with 
his remarkable pictures he has in lectures and 
personal conversation sought to arouse his 
friends and fellow citizens to a full apprecia- 
tion of these great American playgrounds. 

Now, Colonel Reik has written this book of 
his travels, thus broadening his field of public 
service. He has carefully prepared this vol- 
ume with the idea not only of describing his 
own experiences but for the purpose of telling 
others how they may go and see and enjoy 



8 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

what he has seen and enjoyed not once but 
several times — the same things that he will go 
back to until the end of his days because none 
is more devoted to the national parks and the 
mountains than is the author of this work. 
May all who read this book, imbibe his love 
of country as related to the big things of 
nature, and his enthusiasm for the out-of- 
doors. 

Horace M. Albright, 
Assistant Director, National Park Service. 
Department of the Interior, 
Washington, D. C, 
June 30, 1919. 



INTRODUCTION 
OUT AMONG THE BIG THINGS 

Out among the big things — 

The mountains and the plains — 
An hour ain't important. 

Nor are the hour's gains; 
The feller in the city 

Is hurried night and day. 
But out among the big things 

He learns the calmer way. 

Out among the big things — 

The skies that never end — 
To lose a day ain't nothin'. 

The days are here to spend; 
So why not give 'em freely. 

En joy in' as we go? 
I somehow can't help thinking 

The good Lord means life so. 

Out among the big things — 

The heights that gleam afar — 
A feller gets to wonder 

What means each distant star; 
He may not get an answer. 

But somehow, every night 
He feels, among the big things^ 

That everything's all right. 

Arthur Chapman. 



i 



A TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL 
PARKS 

Introductory Chapter 

THERE is nothing so instructive in an 
educational way, nothing so beneficial 
to health and so helpful in attaining a true 
perspective regarding one's own place in the 
universe, as the effect of travel if one pos- 
sesses ordinarily good powers of observation. 
It is not long since the *'Grand Tour of 
Europe" was habitually spoken of as an essen- 
tial element in the education of a cultured 
person. While that will always remain a de- 
sirable voyage, there had already arisen, even 
before the advent of the great World War, 
a cry in favor of "Seeing America First." 
Without underestimating the value or the 
pleasure of European travel, and without 
urging strongly the seeing of any particular 

11 



,12 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

country or place "first," it would seem but 
natural that the vast majority of Americans 
might be expected to become more familiar 
with their own country than they now are. 
If you should be fortunate enough to plan a 
definite trip around the world, then, perhaps, 
you should begin with your own country, but, 
do not forego a special opportunity to visit 
any country simply because you have not yet 
seen America. It is a good rule to travel 
wherever and whenever you can. However, 
at some time or other, first or last, as one 
grand tour or as the result of many small 
trips, every true American should manage 
to pay his respects to the marvelous natural 
scenery of this continent. 

Within the domain of the United States 
there exists some of the finest Alpine moun- 
tain scenery, some of the most beautiful lakes 
and woodland country, and some of the most 
remarkable natural phenomena that may be 
observed anywhere in the world. For instance, 
in Yellowstone National Park are to be found 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 13 

more Geysers than in all the rest of the world 
together and, incidentally, the finest specimen 
of a geyser — Old Faithful — a typical demon- 
stration of the Bunsen theory, has been per- 
forming with the regularity of clock-work for 
countless centuries. Sequoia National Park 
contains the largest forest of the greatest trees 
in the world; 12,000 Giant Redwoods, each 
more than 10 feet in diameter; many more 
than 30 feet in diameter, 100 feet in circum- 
ference, and in the neighborhood of 300 feet 
in height ; the oldest living things in existence. 
Mt. Rainier ISTational Park has the largest 
accessible single-peak glacial system; 28 dif- 
ferent glaciers radiating from the summit over 
its broad slopes, the latter being punctuated by 
acre upon acre of wonderful wild flowers. 
Mesa Verde National Park embraces the most 
notable and best preserved prehistoric Cliff 
Dwellings known to man. Similar specifica- 
tions might be given for each of the entire 
list of parks. 

By a wise provision of our Government, 



14 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

selected portions of the most curious and inter- 
esting bits of our natural scenery have been 
set aside in the form of Public Parks, to be 
held inviolate for all time "For the Benefit 
and Enjoyment of the People." When, in 
1872, the Congress of the United States 
enacted a Law establishing the Yellowstone 
National Park, a precedent was set which has 
since been adopted by several other Nations, 
and which has developed into a policy that 
gives us today a large series of these play- 
grounds. Each year they are becoming more 
popular, and increasing thousands are availing 
themselves of the privilege, not only of visit- 
ing them to observe and study their curious 
features, but of camping out, fishing and 
enjoying the beneficial 'results of "Getting 
Back to Nature." 

Now it happens that the principal members 
of oiir group of National Parks are so located 
that they may be included in a circular tour 
of the country and, while describing each 
park separately, it seems worth while to sug- 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 16 

gest their combination in the form of a "Grand 
Tour of Our National Parks." It is possible 
to procure a round-trip ticket from any point, 
permitting a visit to each of the nine large 
parks, and enabling the traveler to cover the 
course comfortably within the period of two 
months. It goes without saying that a much, 
longer time might be profitably devoted to 
the journey; but the fact that it can be ac- 
complished in so short a time will be new to 
many people, and may make it possible for 
some who have but limited opportunity to 
travel to take the trip and enjoy most of the 
benefits. 

General Plan of Toue 

Starting from New York, or any other 
eastern point, by that trunk-line railroad which 
will most conveniently furnish transportation 
to Denver, the route of the excursion ticket 
thence would be as follows : 
Denver to Santa Fe, N. M., via Denver and 

Rio Grande R. R. 



16 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

Santa Fe to San Francisco, via Atchison, 

Topeka and Santa Fe R. R. 
San Francisco to Seattle, via Southern Pacific 

R. R. 
Seattle to Great Falls, Montana, via Great 

Northern R. R. 
Great Falls to Gardiner, Montana, via North- 
ern Pacific R. R. 
Yellowstone Park Transportation Co. through 

the Park to Cody, Wyoming. 
Cody to Denver, via the Burlington Route. 

With stop-over privileges and the addition 
of a few short side trips this will permit visit- 
ing the parks in the following manner: 

First on the list is the new Rocky Mountain 
National; to be taken as a side trip from 
Denver, over the Colorado and Southern rail- 
road to Loveland, Colorado. The city of 
Denver itself is very attractive, having an 
excellent system of local parks, and it is worthy 
of mention at this point that there are along 
the route of this circular tour many other inter- 
esting things to be seen beside those included 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 17 

in the parks. Por instance, in Colorado the 
journey may be arrested at Colorado Springs 
for a visit to the Garden of the Gods, Pike's 
Peak and Manitou Springs. 

Mesa Verde National Park, also in the 
State of Colorado, is reached by using the main 
ticket as far as Alamosa, Colorado, and then 
purchasing a side-trip ticket to Mancos and 
return. The railroads are very liberal in pro- 
viding choice of routes and stop-over privi- 
leges. If, when having the ticket made up, 
attention is called to it, the side trip to Love- 
land, referred to above, is provided without 
extra cost; and, at the same time, it is pos- 
sible to make a choice of routes to Alamosa, 
so that Mancos shall be included in the original 
ticket, together with the privilege of going 
through the Royal Gorge. 

Resuming the trip at Alamosa, you continue 
to Santa Pe, the oldest established town in 
the United States, and in this vicinity the 
opportunity is afforded to visit some interest- 
ing Indian villages. At this point change is 



18 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

made to the Santa Fe railway system, along 
the course of which the first important attrac- 
tion presented is the Petrified Forest of Ari- 
zona. An automobile ride of one hour takes 
you direct to the largest field of the largest and 
most perfect specimens of petrified wood any- 
where on this globe. Another side-trip, from 
Williams, Arizona, takes you to the most won- 
derful of all the World's Wonders — the 
Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. 

En route from Williams to San Francisco, 
stops may be made at Visalia, California, for 
entrance to the Sequoia National Park, and, 
at Merced, California, for the Yosemite Val- 
ley. Between San Francisco and Portland, 
Oregon, stop-over is made at Medford to per- 
mit another side-trip by automobile to Crater 
Lake National Park, and, proceeding north- 
ward, Mt. Rainier National Park is but a short 
ride by train or automobile from either 
Tacoma or Seattle. 

Turning homeward now. Glacier National 
Park and the Yellowstone are visited, in turn. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 19 

and the circle completed at Denver, near the 
eastern exit from the latter park. 

The accompanying diagram shows in 
schematic form the location of each of the 
parks and the railroad points from which they 
are best reached. Of com'se, it is equally pos- 
sible to take the trip in reverse order, or, to 
eliminate any park that does not appeal to the 
individual, and to vary the time at each place 
to suit the personal taste. 

The cost of traveling and living within the 
parks is under Government regulation, and 
each season pamphlets are issued (secured by 
addressing the Director of the National Parks 
Service, Department of the Interior, Wash- 
ington, D. C), setting forth the specific 
charges for every kind of service in each park ; 
so that you may determine in advance just how 
you will live and at exactly what cost. 

All of the parks are now open to automO' 
biles and the roads are reasonably good in all 
of them. There has been a very rapid growth 
in the number of private machines entering 



20 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS j 

the parks during the past three years and many- 
have enjoyed the dehghtful experience of 
crossing the continent in a private car and 
visiting some of the parks en route. 



CHAPTER II 

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL 
PARK 

"Into the wilderness, come! 
Here where the wild bees hum. 

The aspen leaves quiver, 

Now darkly, now bright. 

The willow-dim river 

Sings loud with delight. 
Birds are a-singing and voices are dumb — 
Into the wilderness, come !" 

Herman Hagedorn. 



"T^ENVER is appropriately called the 
^^ "Gateway to the National Parks" and 
that term is especially applicable to this plan 
for a grand tour of all our parks. As already 
set forth, the circular portion of that tour starts 
from this city, Denver is, literally, the central 
gate or doorway to the Rocky Mountains and 
its interest in the sub j ect of parks in general is 
well attested by the number of local parks 

21 



22 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

established by the City Government. It is an 
unusually attractive city, enjoying a dehght- 
ful climate, because of its advantageous loca- 
tion on the eastern slope of the Rockies, with 
an altitude of 5000 feet, and with homes that 
have evidently been planned to secure to the 
inliabitants the greatest amount of benefit 
from the glorious sunshine and pure air. The 
claim is made that it has 300 sun-shiny days 
in the year. The dwellings, ranging from the 
small bungalow type to the most palatial resi- 
dences, are practically all built singly, with 
lawns and gardens surrounding them. Flow- 
ers grow almost as abundantly and quite 
as perfectly as in many more tropical 
regions, and as the land has a gently rolling 
character, the adopted style of architecture 
and of floral decoration tends to make a city 
beautiful. 

There are four large public parks within 
the city limits. Largest of these, the City 
Park contains a Zoological Garden with an 
interesting collection of animals, a municipal 




riuilii hy U'hwall Bros. Repro lured by courtesy o 
llie .\alional Park Service. 

MINNEHAHA OF THE ASPENS. ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 23 

golf links, a conservatory, and two small lakes 
on which boating is possible. 

An electric fountain, with kaleidoscopic 
color displays, has been constructed here espe- 
cially to entertain Denver's citizens and guests 
at night, while they listen to the Municipal 
Band concerts which are given every evening 
and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. 
Here too is found a very interesting Museum 
containing a remarkable collection of the wild 
animals of the western states, mounted and 
grouped as nearly as possible in accordance 
with our knowledge of their natural conditions. 
Washington and Berkely Parks, in other parts 
of the city, are attractive mainly because of 
their public bathing facilities, playgrounds and 
tennis courts. Cheesman Park is a small one 
on the western border of the city, affording a 
commanding view of the principal peaks of the 
Colorado Rockies, from Long's Peak on the 
north to Pike's Peak on the south. Crowds of 
people congregate there nearly every evening, 
in and about the Cheesman Memorial Build- 



24 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

ing, to witness the sun-set, with its effective 
cloud coloring over the mountain ranges. 

Not content, however, with such a series of 
local parks, Denver has adopted a unique 
scheme in the construction of a boulevard to 
Lookout and Genesee mountains, both located 
in neighboring counties, and the maintenance 
of large parks in these favored places; drive- 
ways and sites that afford marvelous views of 
the surrounding mountains and plains. Many- 
interesting day trips into the country adjacent 
to Denver, by automobile or street car, are 
advertised to the tourist and all of them are 
worth taking if time can be spared for that 
purpose. In consequence of all this interest 
in out-of-door life, Denver is not only a neces- 
sary and appropriate place from which to start 
on the park tour, but a city in sympathy with 
your desires and objects. 

In selecting a route to the Rocky Mountain 
National Park (still locally spoken of as Estes 
Park) you may choose between an automobile 
trip the entire distance and a combined auto- 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 25 

mobile and railroad journey over either of 
several different courses. For instance, train 
may be taken to Longmont or Lyons ; to Love- 
land, a few miles further north; or, to Fort 
Collins, still further northward; and the 
journey from either of these places will be 
completed by automobile stage to the park. 
Of these different routes, the Loveland en- 
trance is the most interesting because the road 
parallels the Big Thompson river almost the 
entire distance of 32 miles, and for a consid- 
erable part of this distance the river traverses 
a narrow canyon with high rocky walls, in 
many places quite brightly colored. It is the 
longest but decidedly the most picturesque 
route. All tickets, however, permit a choice 
of these ways, and permit of going in one way 
and out by another. 

Arriving at the village of Estes Park, you 
find a small mountain town whose sole busi- 
.ness is the entertainment of summer visitors. 
The rapidly growing popularity of this region 
is attested by the fact that the 50,000 visitors 



26 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

of 1916 was more than doubled in the year 
1917, in spite of the depressing effect of war 
conditions. The situation of this park, so near 
to the nation's population center, assures it a 
popularity greater than can ever be attained 
by the more distant resorts. Denver is but 
thx/ty hours from Chicago and as the Rocky 
Mountain Park is actually adjacent to that 
city it is possible for the visitor from the At- 
lantic coast region to reach the park with but 
two and a half days' journey. Thus, this one 
park is brought within reach of the traveler 
who has but a limited two weeks' vacation and 
enables him to make the round trip without 
using up all his time on the railroad. 

From the many good hotels in Estes the 
principal points of interest may easily be 
reached. Garages and liveries are numerous 
in the town and machines or trail animals can 
be obtained at reasonable rates. Nor is there 
any set programme for seeing the sights of 
this park. It is mainly virgin mountain coun- 
try, some of it yet to be explored, a great deal 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 27 

of it yet to be made available to tourists by- 
road or trail; all of it offering attractions of 
a most interesting character. There is much 
wild animal life in these woods and the streams 
abound in fish. Hunting is prohibited in all 
our national parks, but the angler will find 
plenty of good sport. So numerous are the 
inviting trails, one might spend an entire 
season in this park and find something differ- 
ent to do each day. But, if time is limited 
and it is desired to secure a comprehensive 
knowledge of the district in the shortest pos- 
sible time, tjiere are three single-day trips 
especially to be considered. These embrace a 
trip to Loch Vale, the trail trip to Lakes Fern 
and Odessa, and the ascent of Long's Peak. 

Loch Vale is about eleven and a half miles 
from Estes Park, the first six miles being over 
a good roadway and the remaining portion by 
mountain trail. If you are a good horseman 
the round trip can be covered comfortably by 
riding the entire distance. Should walking be 
preferred, it is well to engage automobile pas- 



28 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

sage over the first six miles, that is, as far as 
Sprague's hotel, and to commence the tramp 
from that point. The trail is very good, rather 
steep in places, and an elevation of 11,000 feet 
is reached; the altitude of Estes Park, the 
starting point, being 7,700 feet. It is a great 
pity that more people do not "hit the trail," 
depending ujDon their own means of locomo- 
tion; for it is only by walking that you may 
reap the real benefits of this sort of life. Not 
only is the exercise beneficial, but it is thus 
possible to drink in so much more of the gen- 
eral scenic beauty as you saunter along, and 
there is time to stop for closer inspection of 
the many interesting things that bob up, un^ 
common plants and rare flowers, vistas into 
the woods or ravines that line the way, and 
for charming bits of landscape that stir the 
artistic sense. The majority seem to think the 
horse, or, more often perhaps, the burro or 
donkey (sometimes dubbed the "Rocky Moun- 
tain Canary" on account of the resonance of 
his voice), an indispensable aid to mountain 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 29 

climbing. This is a mistake, from several 
points of view. A war story that may be 
apropos is told of a negro who was considering 
entering the army, but found it difficult to 
decide between the infantry and the cavalry. 
A friend was trying to induce him to join his 
company in the latter branch of the service, 
though his own predilections were for the in- 
fantry. In the course of argument, the friend 
declared, "Rastus, you a fool nigger, don' you 
know dat in de cavalry you gits a boss to ride?" 
*'Oh, j^iss," he replied, "I knows all 'bout dat. 
Dass all right 'bout ridin' a boss into de battle, 
but des 'spose dey souns a ree-treet — man, sir, 
I don' want no boss to bother wid." Observa- 
tion of the tender-foot riders in the mountains 
suggests that most of them would have been 
happier without a horse to bother with, and, 
that they would not have suffered half as much 
discomfort from the exercise of walking as 
they did later from the effects of riding. 

From the village, the road follows for some 
distance close beside the Big Thompson river 



^0 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

and passes the camping grounds of the Young 
Men's Christian Association Summer School. 
Then it enters the valley between Wind river 
and Glacier Creek, running to a point where 
the trail starts at a fork in the latter stream. 
Following Glacier Creek, the trail winds stead- 
ily on and upward into Loch Vale and it would 
be difficult to exaggerate the beauties of this 
trip ; scenery not to be found elsewhere nearer 
than Switzerland. Wilderness and grandeur 
are the two most prominent characteristics of 
the region. Here is Nature at rest. Here is 
peace, tranquility and thrilling beauty, and it 
is difficult to believe there can be strife and 
turmoil in the world. 

In like manner, the Fern and Odessa Lake 
trip may be divided between driving and walk- 
ing; the highway affording a delightful drive 
of five miles to a point just beyond the hotel 
Brinwood. From this spot the trail leads, for 
a short way, through a meadow land lightly 
wooded with Aspens and over ground covered 
with bracken. The climb to Fern Lake, about 




Photo hy Wisivall Bros. Reproduced 
the Xational Park Service. 



LOCH VALE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 



EOCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 31 

four miles, is by a gradual, steady ascent and 
there are two interesting side trips worthy of 
attention ; to Fern Falls and Marguerite Falls, 
respectively. Visit to Marguerite Falls had 
better be taken on the return journey, because 
the foot trail is very steep and rough — horses 
are not allowed on it — and descending it is 
rather more easy than ascending. Fern Lake 
is a charming body of water, of greenish hue, 
approximately an eighth of a mile in diameter. 
There is a lodge on its southern shore that in- 
vites dwelling there indefinitely. Excellent 
views of neighboring peaks of the "Snowy 
Range'* can be had, and it must be very pleas- 
ant to float on the bosom of this lake when 
the setting sun gilds the mountain tops or the 
silvery moon casts its refulgent beams on the 
water. The elevation is about 10,000 feet. 
One mile further on, and a little more than 
500 feet higher, is Lake Odessa. Though 
smaller, this is an even more beautiful lake; 
really an exquisite gem. Its water is icy cold, 
clear as crystal and emerald green in color. 



32 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

Large rain-bow trout, 15 to 18 inches in length, 
may be seen swimming in and out of the shady 
pools by the shore line and occasionally leap- 
ing to the surface, their brilliantly colored 
stripes flashing in the sun; it would appear to 
be a Fisherman's Paradise. On still higher, 
another 500 feet, Lake Helena nestles in a 
depression between Flat-top and Notch-top 
mountains. This is but a tiny lake and pos- 
sesses no special charm, but it affords a good 
object lesson in the formation of mountain 
streams from melting glaciers, and, it is at the 
end of the trail, from where good views of the 
Little Matterhorn and other mountain peaks 
can be obtained. 

The third trip recommended, the climbing 
of Long's Peak, requires a journey of nine 
miles southward from the village of Estes to 
Long's Peak Inn, at the foot of that mountain. 
This famous hotel is the home of the still more 
famous and distinguished naturalist, Enos 
Mills, whose stories of the wild animal life of 
this region have become so deservedly popular. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 33 

Long's Peak nicay be said to dominate the 
scenery of this park and of the entire region 
around Estes; rising as it does to an altitude 
of 14,255 feet. It may be seen on clear days 
even as far as Denver, and from the moment 
you approach the park boundary this peak is 
readily distinguished from its fellows. Ascent 
of this mountain is not especially difficult, is 
practically devoid of danger and brings high 
mountain climbing within range of the inex- 
perienced. The view from the top is one that 
commands a broad expanse of plains to the east 
and a seemingly endless series of mountain 
ranges to the west, north and south. 

The Continental Divide runs through the 
Rocky Mountain Park and at several points 
it is possible to cross the divide by trail to 
resorts on the western slope of the Rockies. 
Most attractive of these trips is the one to 
Grand Lake, the largest lake in Colorado, 
situated 9,000 feet above sea-level. Yacht 
races are held upon this lake every summer 
and this yacht club probably enjoys the dis- 
tinction of being the highest, in point of alti- 
tude, in the world. 



CHAPTER III 
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 

"And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before 
"The Tavern shouted — 'Open then the door, 

" 'You know how little while we have to stay, 
" 'And, once departed, may return no more.' 

"With me along the strip of herbage strewn 
"That just divides the desert from the sown, 

"Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot — 
"And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne," 
Ruhaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 

WAS Omar right? Are we but "Impo- 
tent pieces of the game He plays upon 
this checkerboard of nights and days"? Are we 
mere puppets on this world stage? Have we 
any real control over our actions and our desti- 
nies, or is all the thought we give to planning 
from day to day wasted? How few of us can 
comprehend what has gone before or even 
understand what is now happening. 

A visit to Mesa Verde will surely set you 
35 



36 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

thinking along these lines and remind you of 
the old poet. Here, indeed, is a strip of land 
that divides the desert from the sown; the 
barren, sandy wastes of New Mexico and Ari- 
zona from the wonderfully productive farm 
country of Colorado. Not that the desert is 
without interest and attraction ; you may there 
easily forget that Slave and Sultan exist and 
will find a peaceful atmosphere in which to 
speculate and philosophize. And, in this park 
you will find striking evidence of a race that 
played its brief part and departed, to return 
no more; "Without asking, hither hurried 
Whence? And, without askmg. Whither hur- 
ried hence." 

Although one of the youngest of our na- 
tional parks, havmg been admitted to that 
list of distinctive institutions so recently as 
1906, Mesa Verde enjoys its title to this rank 
because of its great antiquity. No one knows 
when it had its origin nor to whom the work 
of its establishment is to be accredited. When 
were these Cliff Dwellings constructed ? Who 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 37 

were the Cliff Dwellers? At what period of 
the Earth's history did they live and to what 
race of human beings did they belong ? Where 
did they come from and where have they gone? 
These are all questions that naturally arouse 
considerable interest in the mind of the visitor 
and yet which must today go unanswered. 
Gradually some knowledge of the subject is 
being evolved through the painstaking and in- 
defatigable labors of a small group of scien- 
tists, and perhaps the day is not far distant 
when a fairly reasonable idea of the character 
and mode of life of these pre-historic people 
may be available to us. Even now a suf- 
ficiently illuminating series of facts has been 
disclosed to make a study of the subject inter- 
esting to even the ordinary tourist, and to 
make a visit to this region of excavations a 
desirable and inspiring affair. 

The Mesa Verde Park is located in the 
southwestern corner of Colorado, the town of 
Mancos, on the Denver and Rio Grande rail- 
road, being the nearest rail approach, and the 



38 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

scenery of that district is deserving of being 
classed among the most charming of our won- 
derful mountain and desert land. From Man- 
cos the Government has constructed an excel- 
lent automobile highway for a distance of 32 
miles to the park, and is now contemplating 
a series of additional roads within the park 
territory that will make available a much 
larger area of beautiful country. Colorado 
probably contains as much interesting, beauti- 
ful and marvelous scenery as any single state 
in the Union and the visitor to the two Na- 
tional Parks located within her borders, 
whether making the grand tour of all the parks 
or not, will be wise to take in as much as he 
can of the other wonderful scenery of the state, 
while traveling to these special places. It 
would be very unwise, for instance, to pass 
directly through Colorado Springs, on the way 
from Denver to Mancos, without pause to 
inspect some of the natural features of that 
lovely resort. Again there is a choice of sev- 
eral possible routes between these central 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 39 

points, and both pleasure and profit can be 
had by stopping briefly at some of the most 
attractive places along the chosen route. It 
has already been mentioned, in the itinerary 
for touring the parks, that you may travel 
directly south from Denver to Antonito and 
thence westward, by a branch line, to Mancos. 
But, if preferred, you may when purchasing 
your transcontinental ticket, secure, without 
additional charge, the privilege of approach- 
ing Mancos by one of the so-called "Round 
the Circle" trips; or, you may by the payment 
of $10 extra secure a still different form of 
"Circle" ticket that will open up to you some 
of the grandest scenery to be found anywhere. 
Let us consider Colorado Springs and its at- 
tractions briefly before describing the three 
methods of reaching Mancos. 

Colorado Springs, with its near-by attrac- 
tions, is included in all three routes to Mesa 
Verde and no scenery in America has received 
more or better advertising than has this par- 
ticular portion of Colorado during the past 



40 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

twenty-five years. It is from this city that 
Pike's Peak is to be reached and that the 
Garden of the Gods and the two Cheyenne 
Canyons are entered. Pike's Peak is the one 
very high mountain in this country whose top- 
most pinnacle (14,109 feet above sea level) 
may be climbed by anybody. Long's Peak, 
in the Rocky Mountain Park, is not very diffi- 
cult to climb, and yet it requires labor; Mt. 
Rainier presents a task that taxes the hardy, 
steady-nerved traveler; and numerous other 
peaks are reserved for the skilled and prac- 
ticed mountaineers only. At Manitou, four 
miles from Colorado Springs, and connected 
thereto by trolley car and railroad, and at the 
base of Pike's Peak, you may step into a com- 
fortable car of the cog-railway and in the short 
space of two hours find yourself at the summit, 
without having exerted any muscle power 
whatsoever and without having felt any discom- 
fort unless it should be a slight exhilaration, 
sometimes resulting in a degree of famtness, 
from the elevated position and consequent 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 41 

rarified atmosphere. The scenery along this 
cog-road presents nothing very remarkable; 
there are no broad or expansive views, because 
the vale between this and the a joining moun- 
tain is rather narrow. From the summit there 
is a commanding view of the great Continental 
Divide, the central ridge of the Rocky Moun- 
tains; the Snowy Range, running along the 
western border of this Divide; and, the vast 
plains to the east, are spread before the sight- 
seer. On a clear day parts of Colorado, Kansas 
and New Mexico are visible. The temperature 
is apt to be much lower at the peak than at the 
base of the mountain and almost any day in the 
season a light snow storm may be encountered. 
Even on the stormy or cloudy days the scene 
is, however, entrancing, for in lieu of the vast 
expanse of country referred to there will then 
be a great sea of clouds rolling below and 
obliterating the earth from view. It is not at 
all a unique experience here to pass through a 
shower or light snow storm on the way up into 
the realm of bright sunshine, and then to look 



42 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

down upon these storm clouds on the one side, 
while on the other side of the mountain the 
hills and valleys for many miles are clearly 
outlined. 

There is a shelter house at the peak, where 
light refreshments may be had and where 
accommodations are provided for those who 
desire to remain over night for the purpose of 
observing a sunset or sunrise from this ele- 
vated position. A considerable number of 
people feel some effect from this sudden trans- 
ition from a low to such a high altitude; 
to some of these the most beautiful objects 
on Pike's Peak are the hot coffee urn and the 
heated Rest Room. A very small percentage 
suffer any greater discomfort and they ex- 
perience only sensations comparable to a mild 
sea-sickness. 

There are now two other means of reaching 
the peak. The first, of course, is to walk; a 
plan that appeals to mountain and Nature- 
lovers and the tramp may follow either the 
path beside the cog-railway, or the burrow. 




Pliolo hy Arthur CImpmiin. Reproduced by courtesy 
of the S citional Park Service. 



CLIFF PALACE, THE LARGEST OF THE CLIFF DWELLINGS IN MESA VERDE 
NATIONAL PARK 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 43 

trail which parallels this and is seldom more 
than 100 feet distant. Recently an automo- 
bile boulevard has been opened to the peak; 
private machines pay a small toll for its use, 
&nd a Transportation Company runs auto- 
busses on regular schedule for those who wish 
to travel that way. 

The Garden of the Gods is a region in which 
the earth's crust, consisting here mainly of 
limestone, red sandstone and porphyry, has 
been worn by time and the elements into some- 
what fantastic shapes, here and there leaving 
sharp pinnacles or massive boulders; in other 
places smaller rock formations bearing a 
fancied resemblance to animals or other fa- 
miliar objects. Adjoining this garden an 
enterprising showman has estabhshed on 
ground of a similar character a replica of 
some of the principal Cliff Dwellings of the 
Mesa Verde Park, together with a museum 
containing specimens of pottery and other 
handiwork of the aborigines, secured by exca- 
vations in that region. An admission fee of 



44 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

$1 is charged and the guide explains what is 
known of the ancient tribe of Chff Dwellers. 
This is the most interesting single feature of 
a visit to Manitou and should be seen if one 
is unable to visit the real thing at Mesa Verde. 
The South Cheyenne Canyon affords an at- 
tractive park-like drive into one of the many 
indentations in the rocky ridge and differs from 
hundreds of others only in the fact that there 
is a rather pretty water-fall at its inner ex- 
tremity, a cataract of 300 feet drop divided 
into seven short leaps. On the mountain top 
near here is the tomb of the late Helen Hunt 
Jackson, who, it is said, was the first person 
to explore this canyon and who called atten- 
tion to its great beauty, expressing the wish 
to find her eternal resting place on the highest 
point of its south wall. Most of the named 
points of interest here, as in the Garden of 
the Gods, received their baptism from Mrs. 
Jackson. 

The direct route to Mancos, after leaving 
Colorado Springs, runs south to Cucharo 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 45 

Junction, between the Spanish Peaks, by way 
of La Veta Pass to Alamosa, and southward 
again to Antonito, where a branch hne con- 
nection is made for Mancos. Should you 
prefer to include a view of the Royal Gorge, 
the privilege is extended of making a diversion 
from Pueblo, one hour's run south of Colorado 
Springs, riding through the gorge and travel- 
ing south from Salida to Alamosa, Antonito 
and Mancos. Either way the scenery is very 
beautiful. 

Taking the "Round the Circle" trip to 
Mancos, the journey from Colorado Springs 
runs by way of Pueblo, thence westward to 
pass through the Royal Gorge of the Arkan- 
sas river. Special open cars are provided, be- 
ing attached to tlie train at Canyon City and 
run through to Parkdale, permitting an un- 
obstructed view of all the grandeur and sub- 
limity of this mighty gorge. The distance is 
only about eight miles, but a wonderful 
amount of remarkable scenery is concentrated 
in that short ride. The water dashes and 



46 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

plunges through the deep, dark canyon whose 
precipitous walls lift themselves to the dizzy 
heights half a mile above. 

At Ridgeway, Colorado, the circle trip 
divides and a choice is presented of continuing 
all the way by rail, over the Dallas Divide 
and around Lizard Head mountain and Trout 
Lake to Dolores and Mancos, or of stopping 
off at Ourey, one of the most beautifully lo- 
cated mountain towns in the world, and taking 
stage there to Silverton — a thrilling mountain 
ride through the wildest and most picturesque 
portion of the Rockies — and then continuing 
by train through the Canyon de Los Animas 
Perdidas (canyon of the Lost Souls) to 
Durango and Mancos. It is difficult to advise 
as to which of these routes is preferable. Of 
one thing you may feel sure. You will secure 
your money's worth by either route, for the 
scenery each way is glorious beyond descrip- 
tion and the selection must depend upon what 
particular feature seems most interesting to 
you, or upon the amount of time that can be 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 47 

allotted to the trip. Should you be returning 
to Denver, actually making the circle, of 
course you will go out by one and return by 
another of these routes. If, however, you be 
following the grand tour of the parks and 
intend to proceed next to the Grand Canyon 
of Arizona, the return to the main line from 
Mancos will be to Antonito and thence south- 
ward to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This also 
is through an attractive mountain country 
with the Sangre de Christo range occupying 
the center of the stage. 

At Mancos, transportation to the Mesa 
Verde Park is furnished by automobile stage ; 
a three hours' ride over an excellently con- 
structed government road. The chauffeurs 
are all capable guides and will show visitors 
through the four principal ruins : Cliff Palace, 
Spruce Tree House, Balcony House and the 
Sun Temple. All of this can be accomplished 
in one day and this park may be seen within 
a twenty-four hours' visit if time has to be 
considered as an important factor. Much 



48 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

more time can be profitably devoted to the 
park, however, for not only are the ruins of 
surpassing interest, but the natural scenery of 
the vicinity is fascinatingly beautiful. There 
is recreation here to content one for weeks, 
roaming through the canyon to explore the 
ruins, climbing the mesa and surveying the 
jagged sky-line of surrounding mountain 
ranges. Westward is the "Sleeping Ute," a 
great mountainous mass so formed as to re- 
semble a gigantic Indian in repose, stretched 
at full length on the hill-top. Northward, with 
their saw-toothed, snow-capped peaks, the 
Mecampahgres range towers. Eastward, and 
comparatively near, are the graceful La 
Plattas; while, to the south, spreads a far 
sweep of mesa land. Spreading round about 
in a bewildering maze are deep-furrowed, 
labyrinthine canyons, in the caves and on the 
ledges of whose precipitous walls the Cliff 
Dwellers built their unique abodes. Wild 
flowers abound in the spring and early sum- 
mer. The Mesa Verde (green table-land), so 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 49 

named because of the growth of spruce and 
pinyon trees in a land where trees of any kind, 
are very scarce, has an elevation of 8000 feet 
and overlooks, on the west, the Montezuma 
valley with its well cultivated fields. 

The Cliff Dwellings were accidentally dis- 
closed to our generation in 1888 by two broth- 
ers who were searching for lost cattle. Push- 
ing through a dense growth on the edge of a 
deep canyon they suddenly beheld this unusual 
sight and shouted aloud in their astonishment. 
Their surprise can well be imagined, for, 
across the canyon, tucked into a shelf under 
the overhanging edge of the opposite brink, 
were the walls and towers of what seemed to 
them a palace. Forgetting the cattle, in their 
excitement, they searched the edge of the mesa 
in all directions. Under the overhanging ledge 
of another canyon they found a small group 
of structures no less majestic than the first, 
and as there was a large spruce tree growing 
out of these ruins they named this main struc- 
ture the Spruce Tree House, and called the 



60 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

first discovered dwelling the Cliff Palace. 
Thus was discovered accidentally the most 
elaborate and best preserved prehistoric ruins 
in America, if not in all the world. Since then 
careful explorations have been made by scien- 
tists, and a most remarkable series of dwellings, 
temples of worship, watch-towers and forts, 
implements of trade, instruments of warfare 
and the chase, household utensils and bits of 
artistic pottery have been unearthed. Many 
pieces of the pottery, especially, are well pre- 
served and compare very favorably in design, 
in decoration and in workmanship, with similar 
work of the present day Pueblo Indians. From 
the mortuary chambers of some of the dwel- 
lings mummified bodies of the late cliff- 
dwellers have been taken and the skeletons 
appear to be about the same as those of the 
Flat-head Indians. There is abundant evi- 
dence to prove that these people cultivated 
the land, raised corn and ground it into meal, 
by pounding or rubbing it between stones, 
baked their bread in stone ovens, and pos- 




Pliotu by Beam, Denver, Colorado. 



SPRUCE TREE HOUSE, MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 51 

sessed stone bowls and dishes for the cooking 
and serving of meats. Some of these vessels 
are quite artistically decorated. It would 
seem that the Cliff Dwellers occupied a station 
intermediate between the Cave Dwellers and 
the more civilized Indians of other regions. 
Their houses were well constructed of stone, 
held together by adobe mortar, and were par- 
titioned into rooms for various purposes. For 
doors they used slabs of stone held in place 
by wooden rods, and for staples, into which 
these rods might be inserted, made use of 
willow wands, that could be bent and their 
ends embedded in the mortar. 

Spruce Tree House is over 200 feet long, 
nearly 100 feet wide, and contains 114 rooms, 
eight of which were reserved for ceremonial 
purposes. A Ceremonial chamber, or Khiva, 
was a place of meeting for religious services 
that probably consisted mainly in prayers for 
rain, in this arid region, and, for tribal con- 
ferences. Cliff Palace is even larger than 
Spruce Tree House and lies under an enor- 



62 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

mous cave-like roof of stone, while its floor 
is several hundred feet above the bottom of 
the canyon. The structural masonry of this 
building is of fine character and would not 
discredit a mason of today. Sun Temple is 
an amazing edifice, evidently the supreme re- 
sult of efforts of the Cliff Dwellers to design 
and construct a temple of worship. 

Mesa Verde holds great possibilities for 
study, for contemplation and for enjoyment 
End, while in that neighborhood, some com- 
parative consideration may well be given to 
the pueblos of present day Indians. This can 
easily be accomplished by stopping off for 
part of a day at any one of the following 
places: San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonsa 
or Tesuque; the latter best reached by driving 
out from Santa Fe. An extra and very un- 
usual treat awaits those who chance to be in 
that vicinity about the end of September and 
can attend the great Indian Fiesta at Taos. 
September 80th is San Geronimo Day and, 
(though no one knows how it originated, it is 



MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 53 

still observed every year with great pomp and 
ceremony. Taos is perhaps the oddest town 
in America today and, incidentally, it is one 
of the oldest, for it was built by Pueblo In- 
dians and some of its houses were inhabited 
long before America was discovered by Co- 
lumbus. The great Tribal Dances of the 
Indians have almost vanished from this coun- 
try, but, in the northern part of New Mexico 
is a race of agricultural Indians who have 
remained very independent and who have 
clung tenaciously to their ancient customs. A 
Mission was established at Taos, by the Span- 
iards, in 1617, and St. Jerome was named as 
Patron Saint. The festival referred to is really 
a sort of Harvest Home celebration or Thanks- 
giving to the Sun God for the good season. 
The festivities commence on the afternoon of 
the 29th; so it is advisable to arrive on the 
morning of that day, if one would witness the 
entire proceedings. 

At Vespers, the evening before the Saint's 
Day, the festival begins with candle offerings. 



64, TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

As the fast setting sun suffuses the valley with 
soft light, an Indian, an Acolyte, climbs to the 
flat roof of the adobe chapel and with a stone 
in each hand beats the call to services. After 
the preliminary religious exercises, two bands 
of Indians, crowned with leafy chaplets and 
bearing green boughs in their hands, file into 
the courtyard of the chapel, face each other 
in two long lines, and then, to the music of 
their own weird chanting, begin the Sun 
Dance. The following day is devoted to sec- 
ular celebration and assumes more the char- 
acter of a County Fair; there are gaily 
decorated booths offering food, drink and 
fancy articles for sale, and amusement is fur- 
nished in the form of races, athletic contests 
and clownish mu'th-making. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 

"All Heaven and earth are still, though not in sleep. 
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; 
And silent, as we stand in thouglits too deep." 

Lord Byron. 

rinHERE is a large area in the southwest- 
-■- ern part of the United States that has 
sometimes been spoken of as "The country God 
forgot." The author of that phrase must have 
been a person who, "Having eyes to see, yet 
saw not." Rather would it seem that anyone 
Hving in this region or even passing through it 
as a tourist must become fascinated by its mani- 
fest charm and ever changing beauty. Can you 
think that God forgot a country wherein he 
placed some of the finest scenery in all the 
world? Observe that, beside a marvelous 
array of the most gorgeously colored land- 
scape. He chose to put there two of the world's 

65 



56 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

great wonders — the Petrified Forest and the 
Grand Canyon of the Colorado River ; that, in 
addition to a canopy of the purest cerulean 
blue upon which masses of white clouds play 
in the most fascinating manner every day and 
all day, and through which the stars gleam 
with exceptional brilhancy every night, He 
spread over this country a mystic charm that 
is more alluring to the soul of man than any- 
thing outside the desert can ever be. No, God 
certainly did not forget New Mexico and Ari- 
zona; God was lavish in his attention to this 
region and showered it with His gifts. 

Transcontinental tourists sometimes speak 
of the American desert as a barren, dreary 
waste, the crossing of which must be endured 
but cannot possibly be enjoyed. Whatever it 
may have meant to those pioneers who trehed 
over it in the early days, the present method 
of crossing need not be dreaded. Even as 
seen from the windows of a rapidly moving 
express train the panorama is pleasurable and 
interesting. But the American Desert is far 






Photo by II. T. Cowling. Reproduced by courtesy of 
the National Park Service. 



GRAND CANYON FROM MOJAVE POINT 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 67 

from being the barren, worthless land it ap- 
pears to the casual passer-by. Get out and 
tramp through a portion of the desert and you 
will find many beautiful flowers blooming in 
this apparently arid waste. You will not be 
surprised to see the Cactus blossoming in per- 
fection of form, size and color; but you may 
be amazed to discover a great variety of small, 
delicate, brilliantly colored flowers. Generally 
these are found growing under the protecting 
shade of a sage brush, and you will be mystified 
in wondering where they obtain food and 
drink. It is a demonstration of Burns' lines — 
*'Ilka blade of grass keps it's ain drap o' dew." 
The desert has its own interesting flora, and, 
in addition, it should be remembered, it is ca- 
pable of producing a luxuriant growth of 
plant life when treated in the proper way by 
irrigation. Some day this whole vast area may 
blossom and fructify as a fertile garden. 

Breaking the journey at the City of Santa 
Fe, you will step into a quaint, old-fashioned 
town, whose buildings have the air of antiquity. 



58 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

if not of decadence, and most of whose citizens 
speak a foreign tongue. It is the Capital of 
New Mexico, a large number of whose inhabi- 
tants speak Spanish and not a few adhere to 
the Indian language. There is abundant evi- 
dence of "American progress" in Santa Fe, 
but the most interesting features of the city- 
are those pertaining to its early history. For 
instance, the oldest continuously inhabited 
house in the United States is said to be one 
located here and which was constructed long 
before the Pilgrims landed on our Atlantic 
coast. It was built by the Pecos Indians prior 
to the arrival of the Spaniards, who established 
themselves in this vicinity in 1605. The old 
Government Palace has been the seat of gov- 
ernment for the Spaniards, Indians, Mexicans 
and present-day Americans, successively, and 
the great plaza has witnessed the most im- 
portant local historical events of the past three 
centuries, at least, while as to what transpired 
there before 1600, in the days of the Cliff 
Dwellers, we have no record. Santa Fe has 




ADOBE HOUSES IN THE INDIAN PUEBLO OF TESUQUE, NEW MEXICO 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 59 

also gained some distinction in more recent 
years by being the home of General Lew Wal- 
lace, while he was writing "Ben Hur," and of 
Kit Carson ; two gentlemen of rather different 
tastes and characteristics. 

The Indian village of Tesuque may be 
reached by a short drive northward from the 
city and affords an excellent opportunity to 
study a typical pueblo. It lies in the midst 
of a flourishing farming country and a region 
that contains many relics of the ancient tribes. 
Because it is a farming community the men 
will be mostly occupied in the fields while the 
women look after the necessary things to be 
done within the village proper. Not only do 
they engage in basket weaving and rug mak- 
ing, but groups of squaws may be seen thresh- 
ing grain after their old time method ; the grain 
being spread out on a large cloth and beaten 
with flails. The buildings are mostly one-story 
in height, constructed of adobe and arranged 
in the form of a quadrangle; the central liollow 
square, or Plaza, being the place for public 



GO TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

meetings. A few houses are two-stories in 
height, but there are no interior stairways and 
the upper tier of rooms has to be reached by 
ladder to the roof of the first story. The Chief 
of the tribe is duly chosen or elected by his 
own people and is clothed with more than the 
power of an ordinary American Mayor ; he is, 
in fact, a King or Dictator in a small way, 
having absolute authority in all tribal affairs. 
Their government is based upon the communal 
plan, all working for the good of the general 
community and all sharing in the products of 
the community labor. It is a rather interest- 
ing fact that the Pueblo Indians of New 
Mexico and Ai'izona have lived in accordance 
with this socialistic plan for hundreds of years, 
that they have universal suffrage, and that 
they have never been a charge upon our na- 
tional government. 

Continuing the journey westward from 
Santa Fe the railroad passes through numer- 
ous pueblos, glimpses of which may be had 
from the car window, and within a few miles 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 61 

of others that would repay the time spent in 
visiting them. Three of the most important 
are Laguna, Acoma and Zuni. Except for its 
more attractive location, on the top of a mesa 
300 feet above the neighboring plain, Laguna 
differs but slightly from Tesuque; it is some- 
what larger, the Mission church is more pre- 
tentious and there is an air of greater prosper- 
ity about the buildings. Acoma, attained by 
a drive of fifteen miles from Laguna, is built 
upon the summit of a table rock with eroded 
precipitous sides, 350 feet above the plain, 
'which is 7000 feet above the sea. The Mission 
church of this pueblo has walls 60 feet high 
"by 10 feet thick, with timbers that measure 40 
feet in length and 14 inches square, and the 
task involved in its construction may be 
imagined when it is recalled that all the ma- 
terial used in building had to be carried by 
hand up a hazardous stairway cut into the 
rock. It is believed by some that the Acomas 
once had their home upon the Mesa Encan- 
tada (Enchanted Mesa), 430 feet in height] 



62 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

and about three miles from the present site, 
and that they were compelled to move because 
its only approach was closed by the falling of 
a cliff. Zuni has been made famous by the 
writings of Mr. Frank Gushing, who lived in 
the pueblo for several years, and the Zuni 
ceremonial dances are of world wide renown. 
Gallup is the railway point of departure for 
this pueblo and the trip is a comfortable car- 
riage ride over good roads and through im- 
pressive scenery. 

Crossing the line that separates New Mexico 
from Arizona, the Indians may be abandoned 
for a consideration of some of the inanimate 
wonders of this new "Land of Enchantment." 
Adamana is the point of arrest for inspection 
of the great Petrified Forest of Arizona, the 
largest collection of tlie largest and finest 
specimens of petrified wood to be found any- 
where in the world. Thousands of acres are 
thickly strewn with trunks and segments of 
trunks, or covered with chip-like fragments. 
Some of these prostrate trees of stone are over 




HOPI INDIANS DECORATING POTTERY 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 63 

200 feet in length and from 7 to 10 feet in 
diameter. Many of them are broken into sec- 
tions by transverse fracture and a cross section 
will resemble an onyx-top table, the coloring 
being beyond description. 

Beyond Adamana, at Williams, Arizona, 
change is made to the train for the Grand 
Canyon of the Colorado River, and there, at 
the brink of the grandest and greatest and 
most wonderful chasm in all the world (the 
"Titan of Chasms" it has been called), you 
will be struck dumb with amazement. Trying 
to express his sensations upon first viewing this 
wonderful sight, a friend said: "Paralyzed, 
speechless, overwhelmed with emotion, I could 
only feel that I had thrust myself uninvited 
into the presence of the Almighty. That feel- 
ing of solemnity comes to us in many places 
where the stupendous works of the Maker 
impress us with the same sensation as on enter- 
ing a great house of worship, but, nowhere 
have I ever felt anything like this overpower- 



'64 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

ing degree of reverence induced by the sublime 
grandeur of the Grand Canyon." 

They tell a story at El Tovar of an artist, 
who was familiar with the region, taking his 
bride to the brink and, wishing to note the 
effect of a first view to her, requested that she 
should go blindfolded to the rim and get her 
first impression as he snatched away the cover- 
ing handkerchief. For a long period she gazed 
at the gloriously beautiful scene, apparently 
stupefied, and then, with tears in her eyes, she 
said — "If you ever try to paint this I shall 
leave you." To her it seemed a sacrilege for 
man to attempt to portray the scene with his 
necessarily feeble imitations. If that may be 
applied to an accomplished painter, what 
should be done to the fool that attempts to 
paint a word-picture of such indescribable 
scenery? 

The attempts of others, far more fluent 
speakers, should warn us not to try. "By far 
the most sublime of all earthly spectacles," said 
Charles. W. Warner. "It is beyond com- 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 65 

parison — beyond description; absolutely un- 
paralled throughout the wide world," said 
Theodore Roosevelt. "A gigantic statement 
for even Nature to make all in one mighty 
stone word. Wildness so Godful, cosmic, 
primeval, bestows a new sense of earth's beauty 
and size," was the comment of John Muir. 
According to William Winter, it is "A pag- 
eant of ghastly desolation and yet of frightful 
vitality, such as neither Dante nor Milton in 
their most sublime conceptions ever even ap- 
proached." As a matter of fact these terse 
and forceful sentences are tame' efforts to 
relate the impression received from a view of 
this wonderful phenomenon. 

In a Government publication, Mr. Robert 
S. Yard says: "Even the most superficial de- 
scription of this enormous spectacle may not 
be put into words. The wanderer upon the 
rim overlooks a thousand square miles of pyra- 
mids and minarets carved from the painted 
depths. Many miles away and more than a 
mile below the level of his feet he sees a tiny 



66 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

silver thread which he knows is the giant 
Colorado. He is numbed by the spectacle. 
At first he can't comprehend it. There is no 
measure, nothing which the eye can grasp, the 
mind fathom. It may be hours before he can 
even slightly adjust himself to the titanic 
spectacle, before it ceases to be utter chaos; 
and not until then does he begin to exclaim 
in rapture, and he never wholly adjusts him- 
self, for with dawning appreciation comes 
growing wonder. Comprehension lies always 
just beyond his reach. The blues and the 
grays, the mauves and the reds, are second in 
glory only to the Canyon's size and sculpture. 
The colors change with every changing hour. 
The morning and evening shadows play magi- 
cians' tricks." 

Why does one feel this Canyon so much 
more intensely than anything else in Nature? 
Certainly it is not merely the fact that it is 
twenty miles wide, one mile deep and contains 
within that vast crevasse in the earth's surface 
mountains that are really a mile high. It is not 





Fhoto hy 11. T. CimiiiK. Ktpni,lii,ol tiy diiirlf 
the National Park Service. 



VIEW OF CANYON AND RIVER 



THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 67 

the immensity of it alone. Perhaps it is due to its 
depth and its stilhiess, more than to anything 
else. Generally, large objects are measured 
by height or length or breadth; seldom do we 
think of great depth. Mountains are usually 
looked up to, not down upon. And then the 
quiet of the Canyon. From this immense void 
not a sound emanates. There is a stillness 
that you can actually feel; I had almost said 
that you can actually hear. As I look back 
upon it those are the two deepest impressions 
left upon my mind — the depth and the 
quietude. 

You may see much of the beauty of the 
Grand Canyon from its rim, by walking or 
driving along the fine macadamized road and 
taking views from such noted spots as Pima 
Point, Hopi Point and Yavapai Point, but you 
will miss something if you do not get the thrill 
of a trip down into the canyon depths. This 
can be attained on foot or horseback down the 
Bright Angel trail to Indian Gardens and then 
extending the walk to the river's edge. Lunch 



68 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

is had at the Gardens and return to the hotel 
made in time for dinner; or, it is possible to 
descend by the Hermit trail, remain over night 
at the camp and return to the rim next day 
by the Bright Angel route. The Canyon can 
be seen in one day, but a week is all too short 
a time to see it properly and enjoy it thor- 
oughly. 



CHAPTER V 
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK 

"Wind of the East, Wind of the West, wander- 
ing to and fro. 

Chant your songs in our topmost boughs, that 
the sons of men may know 

The peerless pine was the first to come, and 
the pine will be last to go." 

Robert W. Service. 



ON leaving the Grand Canyon you may 
feel that any other place you shall 
visit must necessarily seem tame and insipid 
after the overwhelming effect of Ithat Stu- 
pendous marvel; but, it is a curious and re- 
markably satisfactory provision of Nature 
that one impression shall give way to another 
without destroying the value of the one dis- 
placed. Mental impressions are not unlike 
visual impressions. Note how rapidly the 
human eye photographs one scene after an- 

69 



70 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

other without the least mental confusion. In 
the minutest fraction of a second one negative 
upon the retina has been washed out and 
another developed upon the same film, and 
this repetition goes on hour after hour, in- 
definitely, each picture as it is formed being 
transmitted to the brain and recorded there 
in the memory center for future reference; a 
process of natural perpetual motion. 

When storing up impressions of the Canyon 
you may have used up your supply of super- 
lative adjectives, considering it the climax of 
all things beautiful and marvelous, and may 
have wondered whether you should ever again 
see anything that could so deeply stir your 
feelings. There was little cause for worry, 
since an all-wise Providence has so arranged 
affairs, both as to the relative value of Nature's 
beauty spots and as to our perception and ab- 
sorption of these effects, that the lesser is not 
lost in the greater, but each finds its due ap- 
preciation and its appropriate niche in the 
store house of memory. The Grand Canyon 



SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK 71 

is entitled to retain its place in supreme com- 
mand of natural scenery, and yet, in the 
Sequoia Park you are to see something that 
will touch you almost as deeply and impress 
you in a different sense with the majesty and 
grandeur of God's masterpieces. In the Can- 
yon was delicacy of beauty in the play of 
colors, grace and strength in the sculpture of 
the rocks, and size measured in the depth and 
expanse of the chasm. In the Sequoia Park 
is beauty of a different type, and strength and 
size and steadfastness that has to be estimated 
by another form of measurement. Instead of 
depth there is height. Instead of a wide ex- 
panse of air-filled space there is dense, solid 
thickness of impervious and impenetrable sub- 
stance. Instead of material that has slowly 
given way before the erosive action of the ele- 
ments there has been steadfast resistance 
through all the ages to the most violent ravages 
of the storm king. 

The Sequoia is stanch and noble and true. 
It scarcely bends or sways in the gale ; it never 



72 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

breaks. Lightning strikes it, because it stands 
exposed above all its neighbors of the tree 
kingdom, and it loses some top branches or 
takes on a scar from the burning of its great 
body, but it does not succumb; instead, it 
stands as erect as ever and carries its head 
proudly as one above noticing such indignities. 
Some violent cataclysm of Nature, or the ruth- 
less hand of man casts one of these giants to 
earth; it does not die or rot like other trees; 
not at all, it slumbers quietly like a giant at 
rest and defies even death. 

For more than 5000 years, some believe as 
long as 8000, these trees have been growing; 
a very much longer period of time than has 
been covered by any other thing living on this 
earth today. Yet, these trees are in prime con- 
dition and no man can say whether they may 
not be in the youthful stage of their allotted 
span of existence. Just pause for a moment 
to consider what has happened in the world 
since these trees were little saplings ; you must 
go back beyond any period of which there is 



SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK 73 

record ; all the known history of the world has 
heen enacted within that time. 

Detraining at Visalia, or at Exeter, Cali- 
fornia, a trolley car ride of twenty miles leads 
to Lemon Cove, whence automobile stages em- 
bark for the Giant Forest, about 40 miles to 
the eastward on the heights of the Sierra Neva- 
das. All the way up the San Joaquin Valley 
the beauty of the fruit farms and ranches will 
have been impressive and perhaps the diversity 
of the crops as interesting as any other feature. 
Oranges, lemons, peaches, plums, apples and 
grapes predominate, but there is also a great 
variety of berries and melons. In the region 
of Exeter and Visalia the vineyards increased 
in number, since approach was being made to 
the center of the raisin industry. Lemon Cove, 
as its name implies, is a side valley or inden- 
tation into the foot hills, like a bay projecting 
from a larger body of water, in which the land 
has been found especially adaptable to lemon 
growing. Irrigation is necessary to all this 
part of the country, the water in this particular 



74 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

section being taken from the Kaweah River, 
and a more beautiful farming sight than is 
afforded by these groves would be hard to find. 
Thousands upon thousands of citrus fruit 
trees, lemons, oranges and grape fruit, but 
mainly the first-named, all set out with the 
greatest precision in geometrically arranged 
rows, with wide spaces between the trees abso- 
lutely free from weeds, and the bright, glossy 
green leaves contrasted with the color of the 
ripening fruit, make a pleasing pictui'e. 

The village of Lemon Cove is the starting 
point for the automobile stage to Sequoia Na- 
tional Park. The machines are comfortable 
and the roads exceptionally good for mountain 
rei?'ions. Ten miles out is the villaore of Three 
Kivers, located at the junction of the north, 
south and middle forks of the Kaweah, that 
unite here to form the main stream of this 
name. The middle fork is the one that is fol- 
lowed almost to its source in the Sierras, near 
the Giant Forest, and while there is a sprink- 
ling of small ranches along the first few miles. 




■WAWOXA,- THK TUNNELED GIANT REDWOOD OF THE VOSEMITE 



SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK 76 

the land is so rocky as to prevent their develop- 
ment into anything of much consequence. The 
Kaweah is a small stream, but the valley or 
gorge through which it runs has a narrow bot- 
tom and widely spreading top, the walls slop- 
ing gently upward in a succession of terraces. 
In consequence of this, it is interesting to ob- 
serve the changing character of the tree life 
along the route. Up to an altitude of 3000 feet 
both slopes are covered with Live-Oaks ; thence 
to 4500 feet is a belt of Black Oaks, Pines, 
Hemlocks and Firs; at about 5000 feet a few 
scattered specimens of Sugar Pines appear, 
and, above 6000 feet, the Sequoia Gigantea, 
or Giant Redwoods, come in, first in single 
trees here and there, and then at about 7000 
feet, massed in groves. 

The greatest giant in this collection, in fact 
the largest tree in the world, the General 
Sherman, stands at about 7000 feet above sea 
level. Its dimensions are: height, 279 feet; 
greatest diameter, 36.5 feet; circumference, 
103 feet. In the same vicinity are many trees 



76 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

that fall not far short of these measurements. 
Sometimes they stand quite alone, in majestic 
seclusion; some of them are united in growth 
as twins, and there is one instance of three 
growing in such close union. More commonly 
they are found in groups of from two to five 
separate trees. Very near Moro Rock one of 
the giants fell a few years ago and a platform 
has now been built up to it, so that an auto- 
mobile or a coach may be driven upon it and 
may roam up and down the trunk of the fallen 
monarch for a distance of 200 feet. 

It requires five hours to make the trip from 
Lemon Cove to the Giant Forest, so the 
afternoon stage arrives just in time for supper 
and generally there is then insufficient light to 
study the trees at all well that day. The first 
impression of those around the Camp, there- 
fore, is apt to be of shadowy forms of immense 
trees that seem to rise directly into the skies. 
Retiring to your tent, after a pleasant hour 
about the camp-fire, you will gaze up at the 
heavens and the tufted heads of the Sequoias 



SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK 77 

will appear to be, literally, among the stars, 
the uppermost fronds seeming almost to touch 
them. The solemnity of the scene suggests 
the feeling of being in the transept of a great 
Cathedral, an out-of-doors sanctuary, whose 
largest spires reach straight up into Heaven. 
Something of this feeling must have been in 
the mind of Miss Olive Simpson when she 
wrote the poem that now decorates the Sher- 
man tree, the last quatrain of which reads: 

"When beneath its boughs you're roaming, 

All sacred things seem near; 
The balmy breeze blows through its leaves, 

And whispers, God is here." 

Other than the Sequoias there is lit'.Ic to be 
seen in this park at the present time. Ulti- 
mately, it is to be hoped, the Government will 
enlarge the precincts to take in the similar 
grove now recognized officially as the General 
Grant National Park, and, in addition, that 
large mountainous tract to the north and east 
which embraces the King and Kern River dis- 
tricts. A Bill is now under consideration for 



78 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

the placing of all this in what is to be known 
as Roosevelt National Park, and when this has 
become an accomplished fact and the Park 
Service can open it up by the construction of 
proper roads and trails, another very attractive 
national park will have been added to our 
already remarkable series. Mt. 'Whitney, the 
highest point in the United States, except in 
the mountains of Alaska, will lie in this park 
and be brought into easy reach of the traveler. 



I 



CHAPTER VI 
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 

"Still lakes o£ silver, streams that murm'ring crept. 
Hills, on whose sloping brows the sunbeams slept. 
Luxuriant trees, that various forms display'd. 
And valleys, grateful with refreshing shade. 
Herbs, flow'rets gay with many a gaudy dye. 
And woods, and arching grottoes met their eye. 
What more than all enhanced those beauties rare, 
Though art was all in all, no signs of art were there; 
Seem'd as if nature reign'd in every part. 
Such easy negligence was mixed with art; 
Nature herself, in frolic, might appear 
To imitate her imitator here." 

{The Gardens of Armida, by Torquato Tasso.) 

THOUGH written three centuries ago 
about quite a different place, and before 
the white man had penetrated the wilds of the 
Sierras, this verse from Tasso's poem aptly de- 
scribes the beauties and the charms of pictur- 
esque Yosemite National Prrk. Lakes of 
silver ; aye, and of many more brilliant hues ac- 
cording to their depth and the play of sunlight 

79 



so TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

upon their bosoms or the reflection of clouds, 
and of the verdui'e-clad hills, in their pellucid 
waters. Streams that creep murmm-ing and 
streams that sing loudly and merrily as they 
leap madly over precipices or dash with reck- 
less speed through rockj- chasms. Luxuriant 
trees and gaily colored flowers; the noble, 
stately pines, spruce and firs that look like 
giant Christmas trees, and, flowers that range 
all the way from the dahity violet to the 
sturdy, vivid snow plant. And woods; who 
can do justice to the marvelous forest of Red- 
Avoods ? 

Nowhere else on this sphere will you find 
within so limited an area such an aggregation 
of grandeur and of delicate natural beauty as 
is to be seen in this small park, an area of little 
more than a thousand square miles, yet em- 
bracing the majestic peaks of the high Sierras, 
a most charming mountain valley literally 
crowded with wonderful scenery, and, a niun- 
ber of the most delicately beautiful water falls 
in existence. The imposing architecture of 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 81 

nature displayed in the Cathedral Spires, the 
Sentinel Rock, or the commanding El Capitan 
would, alone, make a visit to Yosemite worth 
while ; but there are many other equally inter- 
esting things to be observed, the semblance of 
which may be found elsewhere, but the exact 
like of which exists here only. Yosemite Falls 
has no coimterpart elsewhere; there are hun- 
dreds of Bridal Veil Falls, so called, but none 
that so well deserve the name as this one; the 
Merced River may have an equal, but surely 
has no superior in point of beauty or interest. 
Yosemite National Park is located in the 
western-central part of California, only a 
night's ride from, and about midway between, 
the two largest cities of the state, San Fran- 
cisco and Los Angeles. It covers an area of 
1124 square miles and, in the words of John 
Muir, embraces "The headwaters of the 
Tuolumne and Merced Rivers, two of the 
most songful streams in the world; innumer- 
able lakes and waterfalls and smooth silky 
lawns; the noblest forests, the loftiest granite 



82 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

domes, the deepest ice-sculptured canyons, the 
brightest crystalHne pavements, and snowy 
mountains soaring into the sky twelve and thir- 
teen thousand feet, arrayed in open ranks and 
spiry pinnacled groups partially separated by 
tremendous canyons and amphitheatres; gar- 
dens on their sunny brows, avalanches thun- 
dering down their long white slopes, cataracts 
roaring gray and foaming in the crooked, 
rugged gorges and glaciers in their shadowy 
recesses working in silence, slowly completing 
their sculpture; new-born lakes at their feet, 
blue and green, free or encumbered with 
drifting ice-bergs like miniature Arctic 
Oceans, shining, sparkling, calm as stars. 

"Nowhere will you see the majestic opera- 
tions of nature more clearly revealed beside the 
frailest, most gentle and peaceful things. 
Nearly all the park is a profound solitude. 
Yet it is full of charming company, full of 
God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety 
amid the most exalted grandeur and eager 
enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of 




EL CAPITAN AND THE MERCED RIVER, YOSEMITE VALLEY 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 83 

beginnings abounding in first lessons on life, 
mountain building, eternal, invincible, un- 
breakable order ; with sermons in stone, storms, 
trees, flowers and animals brimful of hu- 
manity." 

The famous Yosemite Valley is but a small 
part of this wonderful park, a mere crack in 
its granite mountains, seven miles long by less 
than one mile wide ; but it is the only portion 
ever seen by the majority of visitors to the 
region because it is the portion most accessible 
to the average traveler ; yet it is quite true that 
even in this limited space one can secure a 
taste of all the various delights hinted at in the 
above description. The higher Sierras can be 
reached with comj)arative comfort and ease in 
several places, and the recent acquisition by 
the Government of the Tioga Road, and its 
opening to traffic, has made it easy for a much 
larger number of people to enjoy some of the 
finest mountain scenery in America; hut, the 
Valley will naturally continue to be the chief 
attraction and the most frequented spot in the 



Si TOUR OF AMERICAS NATIONAL PARKS 

Yosemite Xational Park. The average trav- 
eler wishes to enjoy his scenery without any 
hardships and at the expense of the least at- 
tendant labor. The fact that he can be trans- 
ported in a PuUinan to the very gateway of 
the Valley and can from there reach his hotel 
or camp by a comfortable automobile-bus ride, 
will appeal to the comfort-loving sightseer and 
the beauties of the higher mountains will be 
left to the more hardy, ambitious and less seK- 
satisfied individuals. 

From San Francisco you may take a night 
train, by either the Southern Pacilic or the 
Santa Fe Raiboad, both piu-suing the same 
course tlu-ough the San Joaquin Valley, and 
arrive at ^Merced early in the morning. Corre- 
sponding northbound trains leave Los An- 
geles early in the evening, delivering their 
passengers also at ]Merced in time for break- 
fast. After breakfast in that city, the Hotel 
El Capitan having the best restaiu*ant and 
being only a few minutes' walk from the depot, 
a combination train is made up and tlie joiu*- 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 85 

ney resumed over the Voseniite Valley Rail- 
road, which runs from JNIerccd to El Portal, 
a distance of 78 miles. One hour is allowed 
for luncheon at Hotel Del Portal and the auto- 
stages start at noon for the Yosemite village, 
reaching the hotel or camps in about two hours. 
It may be noted that all railroad tickets be- 
tween San rrancisco and Los Angeles permit 
of stop-over at ^Merced for the side trip to 
Yosemite and that transcontinental season 
excursion tickets, even when reading "via 
Coast Line," will be honored by way of INIerced 
upon request to the Conductor. From either 
of the cities mentioned special low-priced ex- 
cursions to Yosemite are advertised at inter- 
vals through the summer. All tickets to the 
Valley include the stage charge from railroad 
terminals at the park line to the hotel and 
camps in the village. Baggage checked 
through to El Portal is re-checked to hotel or 
camp by the auto-stage line, the free allow- 
ance being 150 pounds on the railroads and 
60 pounds on the coaches, excess on the latter 



86 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

vehicles being at the rate of $1.00 per hundred. 

From Merced to El Portal, the Yosemite 
Valley Railroad traverses the picturesque 
canyon of the Merced River and both sides 
of that stream are marked by evidences of the 
placer gold mining of former days. The 
stamp mills of several of the larger mines now 
working take their water power from the river, 
and the flumes, one more than a mile in length, 
can be seen from the cars. The stage road 
from El Portal is a hard, smooth macadam 
pavement constructed by the United States 
Government, paralleling the river, and for ten 
miles, to the true entrance to the Yosemite 
Valley, it runs through a wild, rocky canyon. 

In these days, when the automobile is so 
rapidly becoming a common vehicle of travel, 
an equally convenient and far more pleasant 
way of visiting Yosemite is to drive there over 
the public highway. Of course, to owners of 
machines this plan quite naturally appeals, 
but their less fortunate brethren may also find 
it possible to avail themselves of the privilege 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 87 

as it is possible for a party of three or more 
to hire a machine, with services of the chauf- 
feur, and make the round trip from San Fran- 
cisco for ahnost exactly the same sum of money 
required for the rail and stage journey. One 
night must be spent at some intermediate point 
en route, but a comfortable hotel bed is better 
than a sleeping car berth and there are many 
other obvious advantages; one of these is the 
possible greater enjoyment of the country tra- 
versed, and another is the facility with which 
one of the famous redwood forests may be 
visited. The automobile Blue Book for Cali- 
fornia will furnish the necessary detailed in- 
formation regarding the route from any part 
of that State to the Valley, and from San 
Francisco, for instance, there is a choice of sev- 
eral interesting routes. Thus, one may follow 
practically the same course as is pursued by 
the railroad to Merced and then strike east- 
ward into the Valley over the Coulterville 
Road. Secondly, the Valley entrance may be 
approached from the north by way of Stock- 



88 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

ton and the Big Oak Flat Road, visiting, en 
route, the Tuolumne Grove of Big Trees. 
Or, lastly, and perhaps best of all, you may 
continue east on the broad highway to Mari- 
posa and thence to the Valley by the Wawona 
Road. The last named route is recommended 
because it affords an opportunity to visit the 
Mariposa group of redwoods in the park, near 
Wawona, the finest collection of these giant 
trees within easy reach, and, because the ap- 
proach to the Valley from this side gives you 
the most impressive and comprehensive first 
view of the Yosemite Valley, that from 
Inspiration Point. 

The Big Trees 

Among the many remarkable things to be 
seen on a trip to California few are more 
interesting and instructive than the famed 
redwood trees, at once the biggest and the 
oldest living things in all the world. The 
botanical generic name for these trees is 
"Sequoia," so called in honor of a distinguished 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 89 

Cherokee Indian Chief, and there are two prin- 
cipal varieties; the Sequoia sempervirens, or 
true redwood, which grows in extensive for- 
ests on the ocean side of the Coast Range, and 
the Sequoia gigantea, the real Big Tree, which 
is found only on the western slope of the Sierra 
Nevada Mountains and usually at an elevation 
of from 4500 to 7000 feet. Both varieties 
are evergreens, resembling the pines in gen- 
eral characteristics, with a soft, thick bark of 
a bright cinnamon color whose beauty is en- 
hanced by the fluted markings of the trunk. 

The sempervirens, or redwood of commerce 
grows in forests along the Pacific Coast from 
Monterey northward into Oregon and they 
are especially easy of access to tourists in sev- 
eral places near San Francisco; for instance, 
at Santa Cruz, or in the Muir woods on Mt. 
Tamalpias. They obtain a height of 200 feet 
and a diameter of more than 20 feet in some 
specimens. But it is the Big Tree, the gigan- 
tea, that John Muir denominated "Nature's 
Forest Masterpiece." Nowhere outside of 



90 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

California are there any trees that can ap- 
proach these in size, reaching, as they do in 
many specimens, between 200 and 300 feet in 
height and a diameter of 30 feet or more, with 
a consequent circumference of approximately 
100 feet. These figures do not refer to single 
exceptional trees, for there are actually whole 
groves of trees having such dimensions. Com- 
parison with some familiar objects may make 
these figures more impressive to the mind : the 
tree named General Sherman (in the Sequoia 
National Park) is 279 feet high; the famous 
20-story Flatiron Building at the intersection 
of Fifth Avenue, Broadway and Twenty-third 
Street, 'New York City, is but ten feet higher. 
The same tree has a diameter of 36.5 feet, 
which means a circumference of 110 feet and 
that it occupies a circular area on the earth's 
surface equal to the inside square of a tennis 
court. It has been calculated that one of these 
great trees could be cut into a sufficient num- 
ber of one-inch boards to completely sheath the 
Masonic Temple at Chicago, to furnish all the 




I'hiilo l}y I'livliiii;. lie firnd need hy iDurlfsy of Ihr 
National Park Service. 



BRIDAL VEIL FALLS, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 91 

lumber necessary in the construction of a 
building large enough to house the largest 
ocean steamer in existence, or, to supply 24 
miles of board fence six feet high. A six-horse 
passenger coach or a large touring car may be 
driven up and down the length of a fallen 
trunk of such a forest monarch, and there are 
several standing, living trees with wagon roads 
running through arched ways cut in their 
crunks, the best known of these being the tree 
named "Wawona." 

The enormous size of the redwoods is, how- 
ever, but one of their many interesting points. 
It is scarcely less fascinating to consider their 
antiquity. It seems to have been perfectly 
well established now that many of them are 
over 5000 years old (some are supposed to be 
nearly 8000) and still flourishing. Perhaps 
they have not yet passed the meridian of their 
existence for they still possess every evidence 
of a sturdy, vigorous life. They were hearty 
growing trees long before the Tower of Babel 
or the Pyramids of Egypt were built and 



92 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

they bid fair to outlive many of the most en- 
during works of men of the present age. Then 
all the varied beauty and charm of the pine 
forest, a charm that is for most people greater 
than that of any other trees, exists in those 
Sequoia groves. The color scheme of a jungle 
of redwoods must be seen to be believed, so 
richly beautiful is it when played upon by the 
searching rays of the sun. 

There are three large groves of giant red- 
woods in the Yosemite region; the Mariposa, 
at Wawona, and the Merced and Tuolumne 
groves on the Coulterville Road and Big Oak 
Flat Road, respectively, en route to the Park 
entrance. As already stated, the first named 
is the best grove to visit for several reasons. 
The largest trees and the largest number of 
large trees are, however, to be found in the 
Sequoia National Park some miles south of the 
Yosemite Reservation. 

Yosemite Valley 
From Wawona to Yosemite Valley is a 
comparatively short trip but a ride filled with 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 93 

wondrous thrills. For the greater part of the 
time you are more than 6000 feet above sea 
level, you feel as if you were riding along a 
ridge upon the very top of the world, and the 
changing views of forest clad hills and inter- 
vening vales induces a constant succession of 
the most delightful sensations. One beautiful 
scene follows another in rapid succession until 
a grand climax is reached in the first view of 
Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point. 
Words fail to convey any adequate conception 
of the view from this point. The long valley 
lies open to inspection as it runs almost directly 
east and west and the floor of the valley lies 
some 4000 feet below its towering walls on 
either side, and has a width varying from 
less than half a mile to little more than one 
mile. Consequently, the shadows of the north 
wall begin to fall across the valley early in the 
afternoon. The effect is most artistic and 
from Inspiration Point it appears as one of 
the most striking nature pictures conceivable. 
Four thousand feet below lies a beautiful 



94 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

green carpeted, well wooded valley, threaded 
by a winding river that maintains nearly a 
central line. At the upper end of the valley, 
on the left, is the Yosemite Fall, one of the 
highest in the world. N'earer at hand, on the 
same side, is El Capitan, unmistakably the 
captain, with its smoothly polished sides and 
its dominance over all other features. On the 
right side, in the distance, is Sentinel Rock, 
scarcely less imposing than El Capitan, with its 
sharp pinnacle of brilliantly lighted, rugged 
surface exposed to the afternoon sun, while 
closer on this side is the dainty Bridal Veil 
Falls. As you watch, the shadows creep slowly 
across the valley and commence to climb its 
southern wall and you will find later, when 
staying in the valley, that it is a favorite pas- 
time to watch the blue shadows creeping up 
the yellow wall of Old Sentinel, gradually but 
surely engulfing that mountainous mass until 
only the very peak is sharply illuminated by 
the last rays of the setting sun. 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 95 

A short drive accomplishes the drop from 
Inspiration Point to the entrance of the valley 
at its floor level and then as you ride along a 
perfect roadway, bordered by handsome trees 
of the fir, spruce and sugar pine species, you 
may more closely and carefully study the many 
beautiful and characteristic features of this 
fairyland. First, on the right hand side of the 
road, pause to look at the Bridal Veil Falls 
and you are fortunate if chance discloses this 
to you for the first time in the late afternoon, 
for in those hours it generally exhibits a fine 
rainbow in its spray. The name "Bridal Veil'* 
was given to it because there is always a breeze 
in the little side valley, or indentation in the 
wall, where it flows over, that blows the water 
out from the rocks and causes it to break into a 
long streamer of spray that gives one the im- 
pression of a floating chiffon veil. As this 
thin spray floats out into the sunshine a per- 
fect rainbow, sometimes a double rainbow, is 
formed. 



96 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

As we pass along opposite the Merced 
River, a beautiful stream of perfectly clear 
water of emerald green hue, you notice that 
the rocky walls present many fantastic shapes 
carved out by glacier action or the erosion of 
the elements in more recent periods ; Cathedral 
Spires, The Three Graces, Three Brothers, 
and many others less noticeable perhaps but 
equally characteristic. Soon, on the left, El 
Capitan bursts into view at a bend in the road ; 
a massive wall of smooth, dark colored granite 
rock rising sheer from the river side, straight 
as an arrow, for 4000 feet. Beyond, the valley 
widens somewhat and the meadowland beside 
the river presents a succession of flowers 
throughout the summer months which add 
greatly to its charm. Numerous good camp- 
ing sites exist in this vicinity and these are 
allotted to visitors, who must first, however, 
register at the Superintendent's office, situated 
in the village of Yosemite. Across these 
meadows you will receive your first clear view 
of the Yosemite Falls, a beautiful cataract that 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 97 

drops 2300 feet in three separate leaps; the 
upper portion of the Falls is 1300 feet, the 
middle section about 400, and the final drop 
to the bed of the Merced is 600 feet. The 
thundering sound produced by this volume of 
water falling from such a height can be heard 
for a long distance down the valley and, as 
there is always more or less wind in the canyon- 
like recess that it has carved out of the rock 
wall, the upper section of the cataract is 
usually seen spread out in a whitened sheet of 
spray. 

Passing through the village, where are lo- 
cated the Government offices. Post Office, gen- 
eral stores and the Old Sentinel Hotel, you 
may cross a bridge spanning the Merced and, 
by trail through the woods, approach quite to 
the foot of the Yosemite Falls. Within a few 
hundred yards of these Falls a new Camp has 
recently been established and the plans for a 
new and modern hotel are in process of de- 
velopment. At the upper end of the valley, 
on the opposite side of the river and just above 



98 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

the village, is the well known Camp Curry. 
These two camps and the hotel, in conjunction 
with the privilege granted individuals or par- 
ties of pitching their own tents, offer visitors 
every facility for the enjoyment of the park. 
Yosemite enjoys the distinction of being the 
only one of our national parks that is open 
throughout the entii'e year. An excellent op- 
portunity is thus presented for American trav- 
ellers to indulge m winter sports and an in- 
creasing interest is being manifested annually 
in tobogganing, skiing and skating. If this 
valley may justly be called "fairy-land" in 
summer, think what a charming scene it pre- 
sents when decorated by the hand of the Ice- 
king. 

Aside from rambles afoot or drives on the 
floor of the valley there are a number of moun- 
tain climbing trips made available by trails 
suitable for either horseback or walking expe- 
ditions. The most popular of these is the 
ascent to Glacier Point, at the very summit 
pf the northern wall and commanding a view 



w 





i 



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S. 







'4-> # 'I ■' 




•«llftk. Ill 



'■4*«l 



Sfe....;^ ir'i^^^--. ■ . ^_ . ■ ■• 

.'/w/o 6>' Boyseu. Reproduced by coitrlesy of the 
Xalicnal Park Service. 

EL CAPITAN IN WINTER 






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.^^yUg 






. ,5 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 99 

not only over the entire Yosemite region but 
for many miles over the higher Sierras. A new 
hotel has recently been opened at this elevated 
site and every visitor should spend at least one 
night up there. A quadruple reward is 
granted those who make this trip. In the first 
place, the scenery along the way quite repays 
one for his trouble ; the trail is a long one but 
neither arduous nor dangerous. Secondly, the 
extensive view of snow clad mountains and 
high peaks, many over 12,000 feet high, is not 
to be equaled elsewhere in this country. The 
third and fourth prizes are the possibilities of 
witnessing a most effective and sometimes gor- 
geous sunset and sunrise. 

The start for Glacier Point is ordinarily 
made at 7 a.m., when camp surreys gather up 
the people from hotel and camps for a ride 
to Mirror Lake. At this hour, before the sun 
has gotten high, the reflections in this small 
mountain lake are quite pretty; Mt. Watkins, 
particularly, being clearly outlined in the clear, 
smooth water. The drive is then continued 



100 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

around to Happy Isles, a series of small, well 
wooded islands that have been formed by the 
cutting action of the Merced River, and which 
constitute a very delightful picnicing ground. 
Here the carriages are abandoned and the trail 
climb on foot or horseback commences. The 
course of the river is followed towards one of 
its sources and this stream must be crossed 
several times. At one of these crossings a 
view upstream discloses the wonderfully beau- 
tiful Vernal Falls. The variety of cataracts 
in Yosemite, each a gem in itself, is amazing. 
The Bridal Veil and the Yosemite Falls proper 
have been mentioned, but on this trip you will 
observe two others, Vernal and Nevada, which 
are equally as attractive. In fact, there is 
often discussion in Yosemite as to which of the 
many falls deserves to be considered most 
worthy of special honors. Like most other 
contests of this sort the discussion properly 
ends in disagreement. Each is beautiful or 
interesting in its own way. Yosemite is one 
of the very highest known waterfalls; Bridal 




Pholo by Cowling. Reproduce:! hy courlc^y of Hie 
National Park Service. 

VERNAL FALLS, YOSEMITE KATIOXAL PARK 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 101 

Veil possesses to a striking degree the charac- 
teristics that gave it the name ; Vernal is like a 
miniature Niagara; and Nevada, with its 
pretty leap clear and free of the mountain ( so 
that you can walk under and between it and 
the wall over which it flows) to the rocky table- 
land below, is attractive for its own peculiar 
style. 

Without invidious comparisons, one may 
honestly say of Yosemite that nowhere else in 
the world can you find within such a limited 
and easily accessible territory, so great and so 
perfect an array of exquisitely delicate and 
artistic natural beauty. From this point of 
view it is unquestionably the chief of our 
National Parks. 



CHAPTER VII 
CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 

"Girt round with rugged mountains 
The fair Lake Constance lies; 
In her blue heart reflected, 

Shine back the starry skies; 
And watching each white cloudlet 

Float silently and slow. 
You think a piece of Heaven 
Lies on our earth below." 

Adelaide Anne Proctor. 

THE northwestern section of tRe tJnited 
States is no whit less interesting than the 
southwestern, though there is a striking con- 
trast between the volcanic mountain ranges of 
the former and the eroded desert land of the 
latter. Each district presents its own marvels 
and each offers you the privilege of studying 
the finest existing specimens of its own par- 
ticular wonders. In contrast to the arid land 
of New Mexico and Arizona, the state of Ore- 
gon presents a mountain that was swamped by 

103 



104. TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

water. As against the greatest crevasse in the 
earth's surface, the Grand Canyon, the state 
of Washington offers the great height and vast 
glaciers of Mt. Rainier. 

Medford, Oregon, is the railroad gateway 
to the Crater Lake National Park and is 
reached by a night journey from San Fran- 
cisco. The route is via Sacramento, thence 
northward through the upper Sacramento 
River valley and the Siskiyou mountains, a 
beautiful hilly country interspersed with well 
cultivated rich valleys. Medford is a typical 
new western city, the largest in Oregon south 
of Portland, and well worth a tour of inspec- 
tion. All the streets are asphalted, there is a 
distinct air of business hustle about everything, 
the hotels, Public Library and the University 
Club, on the main street, lend an air of sub- 
stantial progress, and many of the houses are 
rendered quite attractive by a profusion of 
flowers in their small gardens and clambering 
over the porches. 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PxVRK 105 

The auto-bus ride from Medford to the 
park covers a distance of 86 miles; almost an 
entire day's journey in the present state of 
the roads but there will soon be a time, not far 
distant it is to be hoped, when the excellent 
macadam boulevard that starts eastward from 
the city will run all the way to the park bound- 
ary. The first stage of the trip is through a 
very fertile fruit growing district, one of the 
great pear producing regions of the west. The 
*'Modoc Ranch," belonging to Mr. Potter 
Palmer, of Chicago, is said to contain the larg- 
est pear orchard in the world. It is in the 
valley of the Rogue River and the park road 
runs along the banks of this stream almost to 
its source, presenting many glimpses of the 
river, sometimes close to the road, sometimes 
at the bottom of a canyon 500 to 700 feet be- 
low. At one point there is a view of the Mills 
Creek Falls (drop of 150 feet), a pretty cas- 
cade on a tributary of the Rogue. 

As you know, the entire Cascade Range of 
mountains was once upon a time a series of 



106 TOUR QF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

active volcanoes. Among the greatest of these 
were Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. 
St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Mt. Shasta and Mt. 
Lassens, all approaching 14,000 feet in height. 
Geologists tell us that there was one greater 
than all the others, to which they have given 
the name of Mt. Mazama, which was never 
seen but is supposed to have occupied the site 
of this Crater Lake Mountain and must have 
been 15,000 feet high, judging by the known 
dimensions of the base, the area covered by the 
lava outpourings and the angle of the con- 
verging lines upward from the base to the 
probable position of the cone. That it was a 
volcanic mountain of enormous size there can 
be no doubt, but, of course, this estimated 
height is purely speculative. There is, how- 
ever, evidence on every hand of its great activ- 
ity in ancient times and you may readily 
imagine the intense final outburst that blew 
off the peak. Whether or not this is the true 
explanation of the destruction of the head of 
Mazama and the formation of the present large 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 107 

crater cavity is open to dispute and some geol- 
ogists incline rather to the opinion that a lat- 
eral break occurred somewhere on the moun- 
tain side, which permitted the fiery molten lava 
to flow off in a great stream and that the loss 
of support within, combined with external air 
pressure, caused the upper walls of the cone 
to give way and cave in ; the volcano thus swal- 
lowing its own peak. This would seem the 
more plausible explanation. 

The smoldering mass buried in the pit of the 
volcano continued moderately active for a time 
and produced two or three eruptions of minor 
importance, in one of which the so-called 
Wizard Island was formed inside the crater. 
Wizard Island is in itself a miniature volcano, 
cone-shaped and with a definite crater in its 
peak, that was produced in this dying expira- 
tion of Mazama like a bubble of escaping gas 
through a mass of cooling substance of doughy 
consistency. 

The immense crater formed by the collapse 
of Mazama's peak has a diameter of six miles 



lOS TOUR OF AMERICAS NATIONAL PARKS 

and its slightly irregiilar circumference line 
measures about 30 miles; while it has a meas- 
ured depth of 3000 feet. In the course of 
time, following the end of the glacial period, 
perhaps, this enormous cavity became partially 
filled with water, so that there exists today a 
lake more than 2000 feet deep, surromided by 
walls rising abruptly 1000 feet higher to its 
rim. In the midst of this lake stands Wizard 
Island, the peak of whose cone does not quite 
reach the level of the great crater rim, and, 
another small mass of volcanic rock of such 
shape and dimensions as to have suggested its 
name of the "Phantom Ship." Upon the 
placid, mirror-hke surface of this lake you 
may enjoy the miique experience of drifting 
about inside the crater of an extinct volcano, 
studying the curiously constructed inner sur- 
face of its walls. The space now occupied by 
this extraordinarily beautiful body of water 
was once filled by a sea of boiling liquid fire, 
an inferno of flame; it was like the interior of 
a gigantic blast furnace. The precipitous 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 109 

walls, now cooled off and curiously carved by 
the rains and snows and melting ice of past 
ages, disclose fantastic forms as the rock has 
been cut into pinnacles and domes, into jutting 
promontories and receding caves, separated in 
some places by a broad area of smooth, sandy 
planes where a land or snow slide has swept 
everything before it. Then, imagine these 
wonderfully carved walls painted by the Mas- 
ter artist in all the soft, delicate shades of 
color known to Nature; all the tones of gray, 
of the pale greens and yellows, the orange and 
old rose tints. Xor is all of this rockj" wall 
bare. By no means. Probably one-fourth of it 
is well wooded, having a growth of pine and 
cedar and fir ; handsome specimens of the latter 
tliat must be at least 500 years old. Under the 
bright sunshine, with masses of white clouds 
overhead and the deep blue of the lake beneath 
you, the play of light on the dark green of the 
trees and the lighter colors of the rock and 
sand, constitutes an ever-changmg color spec- 
tacle that baffles descrii)tion. 



110 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

There is a good, easy trail from the hotel. 
Crater Lake Lodge, over the rim and down to 
the water's edge, where boats may be obtained 
for a trip to Wizard Island, the Phantom Ship, 
or around and about the lake. From this trail, 
which is one and a quarter miles long in order 
to attain the drop of 1000 feet from rim to 
lake surface, many beautiful vistas may be ob- 
tained. Resting places have been made on 
projecting rock ledges, under the shade of 
great fir trees, and the walk, either down or up 
the trail, is thus made a pleasurable experience. 
An excellent driveway is now in process of 
construction around the lake, so that it will 
soon be possible to drive an automobile entirely 
around the rim, the distance covered being 
about 36 miles. At many points the roadway 
will touch the rim at its higher spots, affording 
excellent views of the lake from the best van- 
tage points. This trip, combined with the ex- 
cursion on the lake will bring you in close 
touch with all the marvelous beauty of the 
region. Trails are also being built to the tops 




Photo copyright by Ired 11. l^Lscr, fnrtlaml, Oregon. 

THE PHANTOM SHIP, CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 111 

of some of the neighboring mountains that 
command good views of the lake and the coun- 
try in all directions for many miles. From 
Garfield Peak, to the east, or the Watchman 
and Mt. Hilman, to the west, it will be possible 
to look over the Lake Klamath region to Mt. 
Shasta in the south; over a goodly part of 
eastern Oregon; and over the Cascades for 
fifty miles west and north. A trip to this park 
will not, therefore, be limited to inspection of 
Crater Lake, but will afford the opportunity 
to climb mountains or to make side trips to 
many other interesting points, such as Dia- 
mond Lake, Sand Creek Canyon (with its 
hundreds of curious sandstone pinnacles like 
ghosts), and the Klamath Indian Reservation. 
The hunter, as well as the nature lover, will 
find this an interesting field. Crater Lake is 
stocked with rainbow trout. The streams and 
marshes of the Klamath country abound in 
wild bird game, and bears and deer roam all 
over the nearby forests. Crater Lake having 
been formed in the manner described, and hav- 



112 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

ing no connection with other bodies of water; 
having neither inlet nor outlet, save for the 
receipt of rain and snow and the escape of 
water by evaporation, there was, naturally, no 
life in its waters. Some 30 years ago, the 
Hon. William Gladstone Steel, the "Father 
of Crater Lake Park," a man whose name 
means much to every one interested in the es- 
tablishment and development of our National 
Park system, introduced the rainbow trout to 
this lake, carrying them in a tin pail all the 
way from Medf ord. There was only an Indian 
trail in those days and it required three days 
to cover the distance by walking. Frequently 
on the way he stopped at springs to change the 
water on his little fish and at night he would 
bury the bucket at the edge of a stream, in 
such way that it could receive a gentle inflow 
of water, but the fish could not escape. Start- 
ing with two dozen, he succeeded in getting 
more than half of them to the lake alive, where 
he set them free in its waters. It was a long 
time before they were heard from again, but 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 113 

eventually his experiment proved to have been 
a success, and today there is an abundant sup- 
ply of trout in this lake. Tourists are allowed 
to catch not more than five in one day. Mr. 
Steel continues his interest in the subject and 
is still engaged in studying the best means of 
feeding them ; it being necessary to maintain a 
supply of crawfish or minnows for them to 
feed upon because the waters are free of all 
other life. 

The Klamath Indians held a superstition 
that the lake was inhabited by marine monsters 
and they have handed down an interesting 
legend concerning one of the high points on 
the rim. They believe that this rock was the 
abode of Llao, a powerful demon who held 
sway over the mysterious waters of the lake. 
His retainers were mighty crawfish that could 
seize in their cruel claws any who dared to 
appear on these heights. Against this power- 
ful Chieftain was arrayed an equally strong 
spirit named Skell, who dwelt in the neighbor- 
ing Klamath marshes and who waged unrelent- 



lU TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

ing war upon Llao. For a long time Llao 
proved triumphant and once, having captured 
Skell, he tore his heart out and gave it to his 
minions to play with. They hurled it from 
peak to peak of the mountains in wild sport 
until one of Skell's eagles made a sudden 
swoop through the air and, catching the heart- 
ball, flew away with it. Being chased too hotly, 
he passed it to a friendly deer who ran with 
the speed of the wind and, together, this pair 
succeeded in carrying Skell's heart to a place 
of safety. Here a new body for Skell was 
miraculously grown about his heart, and once 
again he set forth ready to do battle with his 
old enemy. This time he resorted to cunning 
and, from ambush, he one day captured Llao, 
cut him into shreds and cast him into the lake. 
The hungry crawfish, surprised by this unex- 
pected shower of food, and supposing it to be 
some of the demolished remnants of Skell or of 
his cohorts, cast to them by their o^\ti Chief, 
proceeded to devour their leader and did not 
discover the error until Llao's head was thro^vn 




riiolo by K 



CRATKR LAKE TROUT 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 115 

to them as a final morsel. Then, in sheer hor- 
ror and grief they all died. The head of Llae 
remains as an island (Wizard Island) in the 
lake but the whereabouts of Skell are at pres- 
ent unknown. 

The beautiful, wonderful, incredible color of 
Crater Lake water has been reserved for con- 
sideration until the last word. Much of the 
fascinating beauty of this lake, walled about 
with rainbow colored cliffs, is due to the un- 
usual blue of the water. In attempting to de- 
scribe this color one is stumped by the fact 
that there is absolutely nothing with which to 
compare it. It is not the blue of the sky nor 
of any other body of water; Lake Tahoe, in 
California, resembles it. It is not the blue of 
indigo nor of any other known chemical sub- 
stance. It is not a fixed and permanent shade 
of blue under all circumstances, but, while al- 
ways rich and beautiful, varies under changing 
conditions of light from the palest imaginable 
blue to the deepest royal blue, shading off into 
a purple that is almost black. It may exhibit 



116 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

all these tints within a few hours. With a fog 
hanging over the rim and dipping into the 
crater, and a light wind rippling the surface, 
you may see the dark blue center bordered by 
an area of bronze, while near the shore line 
the indigo hue shades off into an emerald green. 
When the fog lifts and the sun comes through 
the light clouds, the whole sheet of water be- 
comes a navy blue. When a rise in the wind 
produces some white-caps on the lake surface, 
the light transmitted through these waves will 
give a delicate, soft light-blue like the cerulean 
heavens. 

It is said that all large bodies of perfectly 
clear water will be green in the shallow por- 
tions and blue in the greater depths. This 
is well demonstrated at Lake Tahoe, where all 
gradations from pale green, in close to the 
shore, to a very dark blue, in the middle of the 
lake3 is seen. At Crater Lake there is very 
little shallow water to study ; ten feet from the 
shore will, in most places, give a sounding of 
tlOOO feet or more depth. Consequently, there 



CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK 117 

is but a very narrow streak of greenish water 
ever observable from any point, and the excep- 
tional depth of the entire lake gives it a mar- 
velously blue color. 

Remember that there is no lake its equal in 
depth; no other lake of such size occupying 
the crater of an extinct volcano ; no other lake 
surrounded by such artistically colored, rugged 
mountain walls ; and no other body of water of 
such a wonderful, indescribable blue. This 
coloring, varying from a faint turquoise to the 
deepest indigo blue, makes Crater Lake one 
of the most beautiful spots in America. 



CHAPTER VIII 
MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 

(Mt. Rainier: "The Mountain That Was God") 

"Let me often to these solitudes 
Retire, and in Thy presence reassure 
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, 
The passions, at Thy plainer footsteps shrink 
And tremble and are still." 

A. H. Barnes. 

4 4rpHE mountain that was God." That 
-«- is the old Indian appellation for Mt. 
Rainier and it is an elegant and appropriate 
name. In their superstitious state they looked 
upon it with suspicion and fear, dreading what 
it might do to them, considering it a power 
for evil ready to wreak vengeance upon them 
if they dared approach it too closely or failed 
to exhibit proper reverence for its majesty. 
Our boasted intelligence and education has not 

119 



120 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

entirely disposed of that inherent sense of awe 
which the human being experiences when com- 
ing into the presence of such a serenely sub- 
lime, God-like mountain; a mountain that, 
unlike most others, stands quite alone, a giant 
in stature (14,408 feet tall) with his feet firmly 
planted on the broad plain of the Pacific Coast, 
the upper two-thirds of his body clothed in a 
snowy white garment, with faint stripes of 
pale green, blue and red shot through it, and 
wearing on his head a smooth pearly white 
cap that glistens and scintillates in the bright 
sunshine of Heaven. The Indians feared it 
because of its bad days, those days when it 
emitted flame and smoke and ashes, and pro- 
duced devastation in the immediate surround- 
ings. The white man worships it, not alone 
because of its transcendent beauty, but, be- 
cause the lava ash it once threw out is now 
recognized as most fertile soil, and the immense 
snow and ice fields that cover its sloping sides 
supply water for the farms and factories in a 
vast area of the northwest country. Every 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 121 

year its dispensation of benefits increases and 
a rapidly growing population receives largess 
directly or indirectly from it. Every year, too, 
it claims its victims as well. Occasionally it 
behaves like the fabled God that must be pro- 
pitiated by human sacrifice; not infrequently 
some mountain climber walks into a snow-cov- 
ered crevasse on one of its glaciers and is lost. 
The old Indians could not be induced to walk 
upon these ice fields; their successors on the 
stage may be wiser but are often more fool- 
hardy and, sometimes, pay a dreadful penalty 
for braving the ice-demon. Perhaps there are 
two powerful agencies at work on this moun- 
tain ; a God that dispenses bounties and bless- 
ings, and a Demon that punishes the careless 
and foolish. 

Mt. Rainier is most easily approached from 
Tacoma or Seattle by fine automobile high- 
way, or by railway to Ashford, whence an 
auto-stage runs to and through the park. Six 
miles from the park entrance is the first stop- 
ping place — Longmire Springs. If you are 



122 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

equal to it, leave the coach at the entrance to 
the park and walk to Longmire. The roadway 
is lined by handsome Pines, Hemlocks, Firs 
and Spruces, is completely shaded, and the 
walking is cool and pleasant on even the hottest 
days. The Fir tree predominates and some 
specimens of the Noble Fir attract special 
attention, rising as they do in many instances 
to the height of 200 feet, straight as an arrow, 
and without a limb lower than 100 feet from 
the ground. Glancing between the trees you 
will observe that the forest on either side of 
the road is very dense, almost jungle-like in 
the close growth of these trees and the mass 
of underbrush, moss and ferns. There is a 
great deal of fallen timber and here and there 
lies a giant tree, a monarch of the forest that 
in his fallen state looks like a Brobdignagian 
Giant become victim to the Lilliputians, for it 
is literally covered with a new growth of moss, 
ferns and small shrubs. 

In the first three miles of this walk you will 
cross two mountain streams, Tahoma and 




THROUGH THE FIR FOREST TO MT. RANIER NATIONAL PARK 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 123 

Kautz Creeks, both rushing torrential streams 
of milky-white water, from the glaciers bearing 
those same names. As Longmire Springs is 
approached, the great mountain comes into 
view for the first time at Bear Point, at a bend 
in the road, and as it suddenly appears through 
a vista in the tree-hned way it makes an in- 
spiring picture. 

James Longmire was one of the early pros- 
pectors in this region and on discovering some 
mineral springs with health-restoring proper- 
ties, he staked a claim and secured proprietary 
rights to a section of land on which they are 
located. This site has recently been leased by 
the Rainier National Park Company and a 
small, modern hotel, the Longmire Hotel, has 
been erected for the entertainment of healthy 
tourists, as well as those who desire to avail 
themselves of the healing powers of the waters 
from the iron and sulphur springs. Almost 
directly opposite is the National Park Inn, a 
very comfortable, home-like hotel, from the 
front porch of which you may have a very good 



124 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

view of the south side of the great mountain. 
Under the influence of that demoniac spirit 
that causes American travelers to rush through 
to the main place, or to the great climax of 
their journey, a large percentage of those vis- 
iting this park pass Longmire Springs, or stop 
only long enough to have a meal or a night's 
lodging, and go straight to Paradise Valley. 
In doing so, they overlook the fact that some 
of the most important trails in the park start 
from this village and lead to much of Rainier's 
grandest scenery. The tramp has every ad- 
vantage over the tourist who sticks to the trans- 
portation companies. The proper way to see 
Rainier is to send your bags from one hotel to 
another by stage, and for yourself — walk. 
The most inviting trails branch off from the 
road in every direction and most of these lead 
to glorious discoveries. You should make one 
of the above mentioned hotels your headquar- 
ters for a week and walk over the roads and 
trails to the most important places in this 
park. 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 125 

To harden your muscles and prepare for 
the longer tramps, spend the first few days in 
visiting the nearest places of interest. First, 
follow the highway to Nisqually Glacier, a dis- 
tance of five miles; the foot of this glacier is 
not very pretty, being so dirt-covered as to 
appear rather unsightly. Then, on successive 
days, make the ascent of the Ramparts, a 
rocky cliff that bounds the west side of this 
plateau, and of Eagle Peak, that rises majes- 
tically on the east. There is good trail to each 
of these points, the last named being rather 
steep, and the rewards are wonderful views of 
the surrounding country. It is like gazing 
down from a height upon an immense relief 
map. Mountains and more mountains, in 
every direction encircling and covering the 
land within a radius of fifty miles; the great 
snow-capped, symmetrical peaks of Mt. 
Adams and Mt. St. Helens standing out espe- 
cially prominent. 

Being prepared for the longer trails and 
higher climbing, the two most enticing trips to 



126 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

consider are those to Van Trump Park and 
to Indian Henry's Hunting Grounds. The 
first is reached by following the road almost to 
the foot of Nisqually Glacier, leaving the 
highway and striking into the woods at the 
base of Christine Falls, a very charming little 
cataract where Van Trump Creek empties into 
the Nisqually River, and climbing over the 
shoulder of Cushman mountain. The trail fol- 
lows the course of the stream and there are 
several picturesque views to cheer you on as 
you must climb something like 2200 feet in the 
first two and a half miles. There are beautiful 
glimpses of deep granite walled canyons, cut 
out by the erosive action of the descending 
waters, and a succession of cascades, while 
vistas open now and then to disclose snow- 
capped peaks of the Tatoosh Range of moun- 
tains. Near the head of this trail is the Comet 
Falls, perhaps the most beautiful water fall in 
Rainier Park. It has a drop of 200 feet and 
does bear some resemblance to the tail of a 
comet. 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 127 

Van Trump Park is one of the three great 
natural park-hke areas on the south slope of 
the mountain and, like Indian Henry's and 
Paradise, constitutes a vast flower garden at 
the very edge of the glaciers and snow fields. 
It presents an excellent view of the mountain, 
with Nisqually glacier to the right and Kautz 
glacier on the left, and all about on the vast 
green plain grows a profusion of vari-colored 
flowers. White and yellow Avalanche Lilies, 
the gorgeous red Indian Paint Brush and the 
Blue Lupines bloom in great patches, and 
small patches of Heather add to the color 
scheme. At this point the great snow cap of 
Rainier seems so close that you might almost 
touch it; so wonderful are the proportions of 
this mountain, it is difficult to realize that its 
near peak, Peak Success, is really 9000 feet 
above you. 

There are three trails leading into Indian 
Henry's Hunting Ground; one follows the 
course of Tahoma Creek, just within the park 
entrance; a second starts in the vicinity of 



128 TOUR OF AMERICAS NATIONAL PARKS 

Kautz Creek, where it crosses the highway; 
and the third, and most generally used, begins 
at Longmire Springs about half a mile beyond 
the hotels. Horses may be obtained from the 
Transportation Company but the trail is not 
difficult to the average healthy individual. It 
is a typical zigzag mountain trail, rising 2800 
feet in the course of seven miles and crossing 
the upper part of Kautz Creek and two of its 
tributaries, Pyramid and Devil's Dream 
Creeks. Near the upper end of the trail snow 
will be encountered in small patches and mos- 
quitoes in large flocks; incidentally, the mos- 
quitoes of the higher mountains are smaller 
but more vicious than the much slandered Jer- 
sey variety and they conduct their business 
operations at all hours; they are not at all de- 
terred by cold, but seem to operate with equal 
facility and persistency in the woods or upon 
the glaciers. 

At the head of the trail you come suddenly 
upon a broad, expansive green plateau and all 
the beauty of this "park" bursts upon the 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 129 

vision. It is, indeed, a sight never to be for- 
gotten. Imagine a vast grassy lawn, of that 
rich green of Enghsh lawns, with a rolling 
surface dotted here and there with small lakes 
and with hillocks that are crowned with clus- 
ters of Alpine Fir and Cedar; while the slop- 
ing sides of these little hills are covered with 
flowers and the whole garden is surrounded by 
mountains, the chief of which, of course, is 
the snow-capped, towering peak of Rainier. At 
the distal border of the park, or garden, is a 
lake to which the name of Mirror has been 
given because its very smooth surface per- 
fectly reflects every detail of that portion of 
Mt. Rainier that faces it. As I saw it, the 
south bank of the lake was still covered with 
snow, there was a mass of blueish green ice in 
the water along the shore, the north bank was 
carpeted with Avalanche Lilies, Red Paint 
Brush, Blue Lupines and Yellow Buttercups, 
and the great mountain was perfectly mirrored 
in the smooth, shallow water. It was by all 
odds the most peaceful, restful, delicately 



130 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

beautiful scene I had ever found. Paradise 
Park, of which you will hear more, has a more 
attractive name, and is appropriately named; 
but it contains no single spot to compare with 
this section of Indian Henry's. 

The old Indian Henry Camp has been 
abandoned; but there must, inevitably, some 
day be established here a modest hotel or chalet 
for the accommodation of guests who desire 
to remain more than a day in this fantastic 
Christmas garden, or, at least, to spend a night 
in order to witness the glory of a sunset or 
sunrise from such a vantage point. No elab- 
orate hotel is required, nor in fact is such a 
thing desirable, but a few comfortable beds 
and provision for simple, wholesome meals can 
readily be supplied at small cost to those who 
will patronize the place; something in the 
nature of those delightful little Swiss cottage 
hotels that make touring in the Alps so 
pleasing. 

Having absorbed sufficient joy from the 
trips round about Longmire's, you will be 




GLACIAL CREEK, MT. RANIER NATIONAL PARK 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 131 

ready to move up into Paradise Park. Here, 
again, there are two ways of proceeding: an 
auto-stage makes the trip over one of the best 
constructed mountain roads in this country, 
covering the distance of 14 miles in one hour; 
and, the trail through the woods is open to 
pedestrians, the distance thus being shortened 
to six miles, that may be easily traveled, by 
even a tenderfoot, in two or three hours. 

Passing the lower end, or "snout," of Nis- 
qually Glacier, and crossing the head of this 
river, the road doubles back to the south, but 
on the east wall of the Nisqually Valley 
ascending steadily to the top of this ridge, and 
then, turning sharply, enters the valley of the 
Paradise River. The name of Ricksecker has 
been given to this point, in honor of the engi- 
neer who built the road, and from this position 
the entire Nisqually Valley lies open to view. 
At its head is Mt. Rainier, with the ragged, 
crevassed Nisqually Glacier covering this 
slope, the ice-mass of the lower part being 
mixed with a large amount of crushed rock 



132 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

SO that it resembles rather a mountain of dirt 
than a typical glacier, while, looking down the 
valley the river can be traced for quite a dis- 
tance, as it flows through a granite walled 
canyon carved out in the course of passing 
years. On either side the canyon walls rise 
to the height of 1000 feet and the turbulent 
stream is still rolling down pebbles, and even 
good sized boulders, and carrying so much soft 
silt and white clay that it presents a decidedly 
milky hue. The road, following the course 
now of the Paradise River, winds upward in 
a snaky manner, making four crossings of the 
river as it tumbles down from the glacier at 
the head of this valley. The principal cataract 
of this river, the Narada Falls, has a drop of 
150 and a width of 50 feet, as it spreads out 
over the smooth rock wall of a narrow, deep 
canyon. In the bright morning sun, rainbow 
colors flit about in the spray that is dashed, by 
the wind, clear across this canyon. At the 
second crossing of the river the water is seen 
descending in a series of beautiful cascades, to 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 133 

which the name of Washington Torrents has 
been appHed. At an elevation of 5000 feet 
the road turns around a rocky promontory and 
suddenly discloses, several hundred feet below, 
a wide, fairly level valley, through the center 
of which the upper Paradise River meanders 
quietly. On a plateau 500 feet higher than 
this flat is Paradise Valley proper, where the 
Inn and Camp of the Clouds are situated, and, 
more important, where you will find one of the 
grandest and most inspiring sights imaginable. 
The floor of Paradise Valley is 5,557 feet 
above sea level; the crest of Mt. Rainier has 
an altitude of 14,408 feet; so vast is the spread 
of this massive mountain, so graceful are the 
curves of its ice-covered slopes, so gradual are 
the inclinations from base to peak, and, so 
clearly are the colored strata of the upper por- 
tions of the rock visible in the rarified atmos- 
phere, that you will find it difficult to believe 
that Success Peak towers nearly 9000 feet 
above you. Almost in the center of the valley 
is a wedge-shaped hill, the highest point of 



134, TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

which, Alta Vista, reaches an altitude of 6000 
feet and directly faces the mountain. This 
hill is grass covered, well watered by the snow 
that remains upon its surface even late in the 
summer, and its western slope is one mass of 
brilliant flowers. Here the Avalanche Lily is 
found in perfection, large blossoms of purest 
white with golden centers; the Indian Paint 
Brush has the deepest shade of red ; the Lupine 
presents the brightest blue, and distributed 
about are areas of Golden Yellow Roses, 
White Anemones and Pink Asters. 

From Alta Vista, Mt. Rainier confronts the 
onlooker not as the mountain "that was," but 
the mountain "that is" God — beautiful, glor- 
ious, noble beyond the power of words to de- 
scribe. Glaciers radiating on every side, spread 
downward from its peak, sending forth, 
as they melt, life-giving streams to the 
plains below. The pale-green shades of the 
crevassed glacial ice, the kaleidoscopic colors 
of the exposed portion of rock and the ever- 
changing cloud effects in the sky, added to 



MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 135 

the marvelously fine flowered carpet of nature, 
make this a veritable land of enchantment. 
To the east, west and south is an imposing 
array of other mountain peaks circling about 
Rainier like an attendant body of respectful, 
dignified and noble courtiers. The grandeur 
of these neighboring pinnacles is in no sense 
impaired or diminished by the dominance of 
the superbly royal master. As the glory and 
honor of a great Chief is reflected upon his 
worthy followers, so the peaks of the Tatoosh 
Range seem to take on a nobility of character 
that is enhanced by their proximity to, and 
the leadership of, Rainier. 

The ascent of Mt. Rainier is one of the most 
delightful and thrilling mountain climbing 
experiences available to Americans at home. 
The trip is made from Paradise Inn, under 
the care of experienced guides and, while it 
is not to be taken lightly and without knowl- 
edge that it requires acceptance of some hard- 
ships, still it is not beyond the ability of the 
average healthy individual. The start is 



136 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

usually made now in the afternoon, so that 
Steven's Glacier may be crossed and the Shel- 
ter House reached before nightfall. Here, at 
the base of "Gibralter" rock, the hours of 
darkness are spent more or less comfortably, 
and at daybreak the hard part of the climb 
commences. The party is roped for passage 
of the dangerous places and then the walk 
across the great snow field at the top is simply 
an arduous task, to be rewarded by the won- 
derful view and the marvelous thrill to be 
obtained at "the top of the world." 



CHAPTER IX 
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 

"The mountains of this glorious land 

Are conscious beings to mine eye. 
When at the break of day they stand 

Like giants looking through the sky. 
To hail the sun's unrisen ear. 

That gilds their diadems of snow; 
While one by one, as star by star. 

Their peaks in ether glow." 

James Montgomery. 

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK is a 
place where, to your heart's content, 
you may wander in the great pine woods, tre- 
mendous forests, that are fragrant with wild 
flowers as well as delicious resinous odors. It 
is also a place where you can spend much of 
your time in, about or upon the water, for 
there are said to be 250 lakes within its domain 
and there are innumerable streams of all sizes, 
from the icy rill at the foot of a glacier to 
rushing rivers that carry the accumulated 

137 



138 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

waters off to the sea. There are seductive 
creeks in which you may angle, with every 
prospect of success, for the sporty mountain 
trout; icy -cold rivulets from the snow fields 
and springs from the hillsides, to allay your 
thirst as you follow the trails; shallow pools 
heated by the sun to a temperature that makes 
bathing a greater delight than it can ever be 
in a porcelain tub, and larger bodies of water 
upon which to indulge your propensity for 
rowing, to float in a canoe on moonlight nights, 
or, which are traversed by little passenger 
steamers plying between tourist centers. 

Does it sound good to you? A very simple 
recital of the facts in this case should be suffi- 
cient to induce any one to desire the trip out 
there. Glacier Park is unique among our play- 
ground reservations and more nearly resembles 
the Swiss Alps than any other part of this 
country. It has an area of more than 1500 
square miles of untamed, rugged, stern moun- 
tains with scores of peaks having an altitude 
greater than 10,000 feet, dozens of glaciers and 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 139 

hundreds of charming lakes. Wild, why there 
are numerous mountain peaks there as yet un- 
climbed and thousands of acres upon which the 
foot of white man has probably never yet 
trodden. The Rocky Mountain Park, because 
of its proximity to the large middle western 
cities, and its easy access even for the people 
of the Atlantic seaboard, may draw always the 
larger number of annual visitors, but Glacier 
Park must continue to grow in popularity until 
it challenges supremacy on this point, for no 
other park can compare with it in rugged 
grandeur nor in facilities for the enjoyment of 
nature at its best, in the rough, and at moder- 
ate expense. 

The Great Northern is the only railway that 
reaches this park, and, in passing, it may be 
observed that this Company, and especially 
its President, Mr. Louis W. Hill, deserves 
much credit for developing the park with its 
excellent hotel and transportation system. 
They have done nearly as much as the Govern- 
ment to make the trip to the park and living 



140 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

therein comfortable. Express trains touch the 
Park's southern boundary at two points: at 
Glacier Park Station at the southeast cor- 
ner, and at Belton, near the southwestern. 
Dropped from the train at the first named 
station, you enter a magnificent hotel that is 
prepared to offer all the comforts and luxuries 
of the most elaborate of modern city houses; 
New York can scarcely do any better by you. 
There you decide on how you will make the 
trip through the park, for there are not only 
several modes of travel, but at least three dif- 
ferent ways of boarding while making the 
journey. 

The first of these comprises life in the grand 
hotels, for there is another of the same type 
referred to, the Many Glacier, on Lake Mc- 
Dermott, at the distal end of the automobile 
highway, and the making of short excursions 
while using the hotels as headquarters. The 
second method consists in living at the Swiss 
Chalets, located at various points in the park, 
and where living is on the American plan and 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 141 

iit tiie uniform rate of $4.00 per day. The 
third is even more economical and more in 
harmony with the sm-roundings, though it will 
not appeal so strongly to those not accustomed 
to out-of-doors life; that is, to rent at each 
stopping place an Indian teppee and to do 
your own cooking. These tents may be rented 
at the rate of fifty cents per bed a day and the 
Chalets permit the use of cooking utensils at 
a public kitchen completely equipped for the 
purpose. By purchasing the raw food, pre- 
paring your own meals and sleeping in the 
teppee it is possible to travel through this park 
at a cost of about one dollar per day. 

The Automobile Highway, starting from 
Glacier Park Station, runs over the Black 
Feet Indian Reservation for thirty-two miles 
to St. Mary's Lake, and then, coursing around 
the northern arm of this lake and crossing the 
St. Mary's River, finds its terminus at Many 
Glacier Hotel on Lake McDermott. Within 
ten miles of the starting point there are two 
branch roads leading from the Highway to 



143 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

Two Medicine Lake, with its Chalet group, 
and, to the Cut Bank Chalets on the Cut Bank 
River. Otherwise, and to all other points, 
travel in this park must be by trail, save in 
regard to the trips from St. Mary's to Going- 
To-The-Sun Camp, and from Lewis' Hotel 
to Apgars on the road to Belton, where boat 
trips are possible. 

Only a short distance from the Glacier Park 
Hotel the first branch from the Highway 
turns westward, winds around the lower Two 
Medicine Lake and follows Two Medicine 
River to the Chalets at the outlet of the lake 
lying at the foot of Rising Wolf Mountain; 
the distance traversed being about twelve 
miles. The lake is hemmed in by splendid 
peaks averaging nine thousand feet and bear- 
ing such euphonious names as Old Grizzly, 
Rising Bull and Appistold. Rising Wolf was 
the Blackfeet's name for Hugh Monroe, of 
the Hudson Bay Company, who came among 
the tribe in 1815 and is said to have been the 
first white man to enter Montana. The 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 143 

Chalets at Two Medicine form an attractive 
group of low structures consisting of one large 
building that serves as reception hall and din- 
ing room, several dormitory Chalets capable 
of accommodating one hundred guests, a bath- 
ing estabhshment and an electric power house. 
Boats may be hired for fishing or other sport 
upon the lake, and there are several interesting 
side trips such as climbing to the summit of 
Dawson Pass, or visiting Appistoki, Running 
Eagle or Twin Falls. 

Cut Bank Chalets lie in the mountain shel- 
tered, forested valley of the Cut Bank River, 
at the terminus of the second branch road 
from the Highway and about twenty-two 
miles from Glacier Park Hotel. The Cut 
Bank River is said to offer some of the best 
trout fishing in the park and, in consequence, 
these Chalets are the particular rendezvous for 
anglers. The hotel accommodations here are 
of the same type, though not quite so extensive, 
as those described for the preceding group. 

The Highway runs across the fairly level 



Mi TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

plateau on the western border of the Blackfeet 
Indian's Reservation for about 25 miles until 
Divide Creek is reached, when it cuts into the 
mountain range and meanders through a 
wooded gorge to Lake St. Clary's. It may 
fairly be said that this lake is the center of 
attractions in Glacier Park. It lies midway 
between the entrance and ]Many Glacier Hotel 
at the northern terminal. It affords connec- 
tion by regular passenger boat service with 
Going-To-The-Smi Chalets, and from these 
two pomts connection can be made with all of 
the park trails. It is one of the most beautiful 
mountain lakes in all the world; a moderately 
deep lake of vivid green water, with an aver- 
age width of one mile and an extreme length 
of ten miles, closed in upon all sides by moun- 
tains that rise abruptly from its shores. It is, 
in fact, a basin of water whose rim at many 
points is one mile higher than the surface of 
the contained water. Here are Kootenai, 
Singleshot, AMiitefish, Goat and Red Eagle 
Mountains, beside many lesser peaks. 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 145 

From St. JVIary's Chalets the Highway fol- 
lows the shore of Lower St. Mary's Lake, 
crosses the river just helow the lake outlet and 
then pursues the Swiftcurrent River past 
Sherbourne Lake to Many Glacier Hotel on 
the banks of Lake McDermott. The domi- 
nant peaks here are Mt. Wilbur, Mt. Altyn 
and Grinnell JNIountain, and, from the hotel 
porch no less than five glaciers are within 
range of vision. No spot in the park offers 
a more satisfactory headquarters from which 
to make a series of short excursions. One of 
the most interesting of these is a trip to Ice- 
berg Lake, seven miles by trail, where the 
formation and distribution of icebergs may be 
closely studied. Nestling under a shoulder of 
Mt. Wilbur, here is an expiring glacier, small 
remnant now of what it once was and daily 
crumbling away. Nearly every day, in the 
warm months, masses of ice break off from 
this field, drop into the lake and float out on 
its bosom. Sometimes these pieces are small, 
occasionally they are quite large enough to 



146 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

sustain afloat the weight of two or three per- 
sons. Under the sun's heat these bergs soon 
melt and the water runs off from the lake by 
a rivulet that empties into Lake McDermott. 
The hardy may wade out into the lake and 
enjoy a ride on an iceberg, or capture and 
drag one to shore. If interested in the con- 
struction of a glacier, and one means by which 
it acts, here is opportunity to study it at very 
close range, the glacier being approachable 
without danger. 

But, the real glory, the indescribable beauty, 
-the most wonderful scenery of the Rockies is 
reserved for the tramper who will follow afoot 
the trails over Swift Current Pass to the 
Granite Park Chalets and over Gunsight Pass 
to the Blackfeet Glacier. The trails in Glacier 
Park are good, none of them will prove se- 
riously taxing to one of ordinary strength and 
none present any special dangers. On the sub- 
ject of tramping John Muir has said: "Few 
places in the world are more dangerous than 
home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain 




Photo hy Coivling. ^ Rep. 
Xational Park Service. 



AFLOAT ON TWO-MEDICINE LAKE, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 147 

passes. They kill care, save you from deadly 
apathy, set you free and call forth every fac- 
ulty into vigorous, enthusiastic action." Any- 
thing that is worth having is worth working 
for and the best of this park is available only 
to those who are willing to exert themselves 
to some degree. 

It is possible to cover all the important 
places in the park in a definite tramping trip, 
traveling without baggage and stopping at 
nights at the Chalets. The distance traveled 
in any one day need not be great, never over 
twenty-five miles, and the only supplies neces- 
sary to carry will be lunches and toilet articles. 
As an itinerary the following is suggested: 
starting from Glacier Park Hotel one day may 
be given to each of the following walks: 

1. To Two Medicine Lake by trail over 
Squaw Mountain and Mt. Henry, a distance 
of about eighteen miles. Two small streams, 
where good drinking water may be obtained, 
are crossed, the first on the slope of Squaw 
and the second in the valley at the foot of 



148 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

Henry; but after the climbing begins there 
is no water on either side of Henry until one 
descends into the valley of Two Medicine 
Lake, along the course of Appistold Creek. 
The ascent of Henry is steep and the descent 
both steep and rough, but at various points 
along the trail there are fascinating views of 
the lower and middle members of this chain 
of three lakes. 

2. From Two Medicine Lake to the Cut 
Bank Chalets. For five miles this trail runs 
through Dry Fork Canyon, where forest fires 
have created devastation, but the three pyra- 
midal mountain peaks, Flintsch, Morgan and 
McClintock, at the head of the valley, hold 
one's interest and prove so enticing that the 
walk seems easy. On this side of the Cut 
Bank Pass is a vast ampliitheatre in which 
nestles a marvelously beautiful lake having a 
center of the darkest blue and a border of 
pale green water. It is one of the most beau- 
tiful spots anywhere in the world. Climbing 
over a shoulder of Mt. IMorgan, descent is 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 149 

made into the Cut Bank River Valley, passing 
beside a series of three beautiful lakes, which 
constitute the source of this river, and through 
several well wooded parks and green plateaus. 
The trail is about twenty-four miles long and 
the river has to be forded a dozen times within 
the last few miles of the approach to the 
Cut Bank Chalets. 

3. From Cut Bank to St. Mary's Lake by 
trail is all of thirty miles and as it presents 
nothing of sufficient importance to compensate 
for the exertion it is better to make the trip 
by walking five miles back to the Automobile 
Highway and then traveling by stage to St. 
Mary's. 

4. The trail from St. Mary's to Going-To- 
The-Sun Camp follows closely the lake shore 
line for the entire distance of nine miles, af- 
fording many glorious views of this beautiful 
body of water. 

5. From Going-To-The-Sun to Many 
Glacier Hotel over the Piegan Pass is ap- 
proximately twenty-two miles and one of the 



160 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARK3 

most charming trails in the park. The first 
five miles is along the eastern shore of the lake 
and thence the climb to Piegan Pines is by a 
well-graded ascent. There is plenty of water 
along the way from the numerous streams 
draining the glaciers above and there are nu- 
merous good views of the Blackfeet Glacier off 
to the west and of the smaller ones on Piegan 
and Gould Mountains. From the top of the 
pass one looks down into Grinnell Lake and 
descends into the valley by a steep and difficult 
trail, footing being insecure in the loose shale, 
the switch-backs being long and angular, and 
the sun beaming down upon one, for there is 
no shade for at least five miles. Such discom- 
fort is, however, soon forgotten, swallowed up 
in the constant succession of scenic effects. 

6. From Many Glacier Hotel to Granite 
Park Chalets, by way of Swift Current Pass, 
is only nine miles, but every one of those miles 
is crammed full of exhilarating beauty. The 
trail follows up the forested valley of the 
Swift Current River to its head, then scales 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 151 

the face of Swift Current Mountain, to the 
top of the pass at 6900 feet, crossing the 
Continental Divide and affording one of the 
most fascinating experiences of mountain 
travel. If the atmosphere is clear you may 
from Lookout Point study all the peaks and 
waters of the Swift Current Valley, its river 
and Lakes McDermott and Sherbourne, and 
look out over the Blackfeet country for a dis- 
tance bf nearly a hundred miles. This is 
looking toward the Atlantic side of the divide. 
Go to the opposite side of the pass and you 
command a view of the Livingston Range, 
Mineral Creek and McDonald Lake Valley, 
and so overlook the beginning of the Pacific 
Coast Country. 

7, From Granite Park over Logan Pass 
to Going-To-The-Sun Camp; twenty-four 
miles of magnificent scenery. Granite Park 
Chalet occupies an open space on top of the 
mountain and the wind whistles about it fu- 
riously at night ; but, if one is fortunate enough 
to witness a sunset or sunrise from this point 



152 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

any possible discomfort will be considered 
worth while. Having started from so high a 
point, this day's walk will be mainly on a level 
or slightly down grade. All the way to the 
Garden Wall, seven miles, the trail is level 
and easy. Then comes a little climb over the 
shoulders of the Haystack and Pollack Moun- 
tains, followed by descent into the valley of 
the St. Mary's River. The great glacier on 
Fusilade Mountain, with its series of cata- 
racts, each seeming more beautiful than the 
other, the views of Going-To-The-Sun and 
Almost- A-Dog Mountains from the opposite 
side to that which is visible from Going-To- 
The-Sun Camp, and the fact that the last 
third of the trail runs through a beautiful for- 
est makes this day's tramping a series of de- 
lights. 

8. From Going-To-The-Sun to Sperry 
Chalets, seventeen miles, by way of Gunsight 
Pass, is another of the great scenic trails of 
this park. It is on this trip that one comes 
into intimate contact with the largest glacier 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 153 

in this park — the Blackfeet Glacier — which 
has been visible from Piegan and Logan Pass 
Trails but is here at your very feet. Many 
charming lakes are visible from the trail, 
among them the beautiful Lake Ellen Wilson. 

9. From S perry to Lake McDonald 
(Lewis Hotel) is only about seven miles and 
from this point exit from the park can be 
made by way of Belton, or one may retrace 
his steps to Going-To-The-Sun Camp and out 
by way of St. Mary's Lake, or still a third 
choice may be found in the possibility of the 
trail from Lake McDonald to Granite Park 
Chalets and out by way of Many Glacier 
Hotel. 

In the itinerary given Going-To-The-Sun 
Camp is visited at least twice, but it may be 
said of that spot that it is not only the center 
of all the trail trips, but is without question 
the most delightful resting place within the 
park boundaries. Going-To-The-Sun Moun- 
tain with its interesting Indian legend, its 
glacier-capped top and its striking individual- 



154 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

ity, makes a lasting impression upon the be- 
holder. And the wonderful mountains that 
are grouped about this part of St. Mary's 
Lake with theu* artistic conformations, vividly 
colored walls and snowy peaks rising right up 
into the clouds, make not alone a picture but 
an endless series of pictures. It is pleasing, 
too, that the authorities have retained the old 
Indian names for things. Think how much 
better to call them Red Eagle, Rising Wolf, 
or Ahnost-A-Dog, than to have tagged them 
Smith, Brown or Jones' mountams. 

One of the finest short trips from Going- 
To-The-Sun Camp is that to Sexton Glacier, 
where the climb is along the shore of Baring 
Creek over the east shoulder of Going-To-The- 
Sun Mountain. This affords an excellent op- 
portunity to trace a glacier from its ending 
back to its source. Or, while you nmst first 
walk up and view it in that direction, perhaps 
it would be better to study it in proper order, 
from source to terminus. Starting from the 
ice-field, note the walls of the neighboring 




Pholo copyright h\ Kiscr I'liolo L<>.. I'orlUuul, Oregon. 

OX THE TRAIL. GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 



GLACIER NATIONAL PARK 155 

mountain; how the grinding force of the gla- 
cier in ages past has carved them in its prog- 
ress. Inspect the moraine of shale, small rocks 
and pebbles. Take up the little stream of 
water and follow it down to the lake; numer- 
ous small streams from different parts of the 
glacier uniting to form a rivulet which, receiv- 
ing waters from the hills as it runs along, 
grows in force and speed until it gains the 
power to actually cut its way through some 
rather hard rock and make a gorge whose 
walls are now moss-grown above the present 
line where the water rushes and leaps through 
its confines. Then, as it reaches the base of 
the mountain, it spreads out and flows as 
gently and smilingly in the sun as any tame 
meadow brook in the lowlands. 

In an introduction to a Government Cir- 
cular describing Glacier National Park, the 
Hon. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the 
Interior, addressing the American people, 
says: "Uncle Sam asks you to be his guest. 
He has prepared for you the choice places of 



156 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

this continent — places of grandeur, beauty and 
wonder. He has built roads through the deep- 
cut canyons and beside happy streams, which 
will carry you into these j)laces in comfort, and 
has provided lodgings and food in the most 
distant and inaccessible places that you might 
enjoy yourself and realize as little as possible 
the rigors of the pioneer traveler's life. These 
are for you. They are the playgrounds of the 
people. To see them is to make more hearty 
your affection and admiration for America." 



CHAPTER X 
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 

"Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies. 
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do 
But feed their flocks on green declivities, 
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe. 
From morn, till evening's sweeter pastime grew. 

"Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes 
His leave, how might you the flamingo see 
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes — 
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree. 
And every sound of life was full of glee." 

Thomas Campbell. 

ENTRANCE to that veritable Fairyland 
known as Yellowstone National Park 
may be made by way of Cody, on the east; 
Gardiner, on the north; or Yellowstone, on 
the west side. At either point the trains are 
met by representatives of the Yellowstone 
Park Transportation Company and the trav- 

157 



158 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

eler decides whether he will "Travel the Wylie 
Way," that is, stopping at the Camps along 
the way, or live in the thoroughly up-to-date 
hotels. The Camps consist of groups of canvas 
tents, the locations are well chosen, the meals 
furnished are very satisfactory and the rates 
are moderate; the plan is somewhat more eco- 
nomical than that which provides for living at 
the hotels. The choice is a matter of personal 
taste. Those who desire, or who can not even 
temporarily dispense with the hotel comforts, 
will do well to place themselves under the care 
of the Yellowstone Transportation and Hotel 
Company, feeling assured that they will be 
supplied with all the necessities and many of 
the luxuries of city life. On the other hand, 
those who wish a taste of out-of-door living, 
without any of the labor and anxiety of a real 
camping trip on their own account, and who 
prefer to travel under the guidance and care 
of others at the least expense, will have all their 
wants properly cared for by the Yellowstone 
Camping Company. Perhaps the ideal way to 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 169 

visit the park is to travel with your own private 
conveyance, be this a pack-horse train or an 
automobile, camping out at night in places 
appointed by Government officials, or, arrang- 
ing to stop over at the hotel or camp stations 
previously referred to. Here, as in the other 
parks, all of the advantages of sight-seeing 
are with the tramper who has time and free- 
dom to explore attractive spots as they 
develop. 

Entering the Park at Gardiner, Montana, 
the first stopping-place within its domain will 
be the Mammoth Hot Springs; the distance 
between these points is but five miles and con- 
stitutes a very delightful walk, through the 
entrancing Gardiner River Canyon. This 
valley is a narrow one, probably not more than 
half a mile wide at any point, and the Govern.* 
ment built road runs parallel with the Gardi- 
ner River, through its center. In some pre- 
historic day there happened a tremendous 
earthquake in these parts and the earth's crust 
broke in a weak line that the geologists call a 



160 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

"fault." Under the influence of the great up- 
heaval, the two portions were rent widely 
asunder, some of the lower strata were thrust 
upward into the gap and, in the settling that 
followed, a certain amount of overlapping 
necessarily resulted, causing one side wall to 
remain considerably elevated above the other. 
Thus, we find on the west side of the river a 
range of hills, of which Electric Peak (11,100 
feet) is the crowning feature; on the east a 
lower but more regular momitain ridge; and, 
in the center, the river that carries oflf the rain 
and snow that is annually deposited upon these 
heights. This end-result of one of Nature's 
con^oilsions is the first of the many pecuHarly 
interesting phenomena in this aggregation of 
novelties to greet the visitor. At every step 
the river challenges the attention, for it is a 
characteristic mountain stream of grand pro- 
portions; here it murmurs or purrs and sings 
in sweetly musical tones as it flows over a 
pebbly bottom, playfully leaps over rocks or 
dances among the reeds ; there it is encroached 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 161 

upon by the confining banks, or obstructed by- 
boulders, and in wild torrential fashion it 
dashes onward, carving a bed for itself and 
forming beautiful cascades; while in its 
broader reaches, it moves swiftly but majes- 
tically on its way to the sea. 

At a point about four miles from Gardiner, 
a subterranean stream, the "Boiling River," 
which is bringing down water from the jVIam- 
moth Hot Springs some two miles higher up, 
emerges from the rocks, and, emptying on the 
floor of the valley, flows over into the Gardiner 
River 100 feet further on. It is an interesting 
spectacle, for it is actually possible to stand 
at one point and immerse one hand in the very 
hot water of the Boiling River and the other 
in the almost ice-cold water of the Gardiner. 

JMammoth Hot Springs is reached in time 
for lunch and the afternoon is usually spent 
on the "formation" — a term employed 
throughout the park in referring to structural 
characteristics of the earth's surface where the 
unusual phenomena are to be observed. It is 



162 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

here that you will be introduced to the first of 
the active natural phenomena of the park, the 
Hot Springs, and nowhere else can they be 
seen to better advantage. Within sight of the 
hotel, and less than five minutes' walk there- 
from, are the beautifully colored "Terraces" 
formed by these hot springs. The springs total 
about 70 in number and their calcareous de- 
posits cover an area of 200 acres. The hot 
water, with gas bubbling up from its hidden 
source, contains quantities of lime salts in solu- 
tion and, as it cools in flowing off, the salts are 
precipitated and constitute the building ma- 
terial of the terraces. 

As a demonstrative explanation, imagine a 
large basin filled with such water and receiving 
an endless supply through a hole in its bottom ; 
the basin set in the ground, but not exactly 
level. The excess water will flow over the low- 
est part of the basin rim, but, as the salts are 
deposited by precipitation along this side, a 
new rim of calcareous matter will gradually be 
formed and grow up to or slightly above the 




Photo by Cijford. Reproduced by courtesy of the 
National Park Service. 



HYMEN TERRACE. MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PARK 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 163 

surface level of the water, when the overflow 
will naturally be diverted to the opposite side 
of the basin, because that has become the lower 
portion. Eventually, if this course continues, 
the basin will be completely encircled by this 
formation, the surface of the water will have 
been steadily lifted to a higher elevation and 
the formation will spread out and construct a 
broader base to support the continually grow- 
ing mass of deposit. It is after this fashion that 
the "Terraces" have grown; the never ending 
supply of spring water has deposited its chem- 
ical content, in flowing over the sides, and in 
the course of centuries these massive terraced 
banks of limestone have reached the height of 
1500 feet above the surrounding country. This 
growth has probably occupied 10,000 years. 

But, you will remind me. Carbonate of 
Lime, the principal solid ingredient in the 
water, is nearly white while these terraces pre- 
sent all the colors of the rainbow. True; the 
color is due to extraneous matter. In nearly 
all bodies of hot water a low form of vegeta- 



164 TOUR OF AMERICAS NATIONAL PARKS 

tion. called Algea, will thrive and it is the light 
reflected from these small plants that gives the 
apparent color to the terraces. 

Climbing to the upper terrace, Jupiter 
Spring, the largest and most beautiful on tliis 
formation lies before you. It is a goodly 
sized pool of the clearest crystalline blue aiid 
the water appears to be boiling; as a matter of 
fact, the temperature is far below boiling point 
and the agitation is really due to the escape of 
carbonic acid gas. The beautiful color of the 
water is not produced by its chemical constitu- 
ents nor does it depend upon reflections from 
tlie sky: every large body of pure water is 
blue, if it is deep, and the shade varies in ac- 
cordiuice with the depth of the pool. 

The size of the pool and the quantity of 
water flowing oft' depend upon the volume and 
force of the supplying fountain and the shape 
of the containing bowl. In the course of time, 
some of tlie springs have ceased to be active 
and there remains now only a cone^ or cohunn 
of Imiestone, or a cave. ^An example of the 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 165 

hollow pillar of limestone may be seen on tlie 
way to Jupiter Spring; it bears the name of 
Liberty Cap and has a height cf forty feet. 
Such "Caves" are numerous and one of the 
larger ones (The Devil's Kitchen) may now 
be safely entered to a considerable distance, 
the descent being made by means of ladders. 
The escape of gas from most of the caves ren- 
ders them dangerous to careless and inexperi- 
enced explorers ; many birds and small animals 
are killed each year at the mouths of these 
caves, through being overcome by the deadly 
fumes. 

Xow, if you follow the water flowmg from 
Jupiter Spring, for instance, down over the 
terrace formation it will be seen that on the 
side of the cone that has been dry for a con- 
siderable time, some plant life, even small 
trees, have grown up, but on the side which at 
present is being overflown, the hot water has 
killed the trees and sln-ubs. That some of the 
trees have attained a considerable size shows 
that the region immersed changes slowly; for 



166 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

instance, trees on the south side of the terrace, 
now receiving a hot bath, must have had a 
quiet period of at least twenty-five years in 
which to grow to such size. 

The great beauty of the terraces, however, 
hes in their glorious coloring and not in con- 
sideration of their structure. Natural Color 
Photography is the only hopeful means of 
conveying to one who has not seen them him- 
self an adequate conception of the delicate 
beauty of this coloring. There is nothing 
gaudy about it and artists have found it dif- 
ficult to depict it without exaggeration. It 
varies on different days and at different hours 
of the same day ; constantly undergoing change 
as the light varies in intensity or strikes the 
terrace at different angles. There are no gor- 
geous tints nor intensely deep hues, save the 
red-browns. The basic structure is a true 
"travertine," suggestive of old ivory, and the 
colors laid upon that by the growing Algea 
run the gamut of colors in their lighter shades. 
As the Algea family has many representatives. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 167 

SO their colors vary in accordance with vary- 
ing conditions other than that of light. Those 
which produce the brightest colors are found 
to grow in the hottest water, and the waters 
of lower degi'ces of heat produce the Algea 
with darker tints. Consequently, the upper 
portions of the terraces, where the water is 
flowing directly from the spring, present the 
rich creamy shades, from white and yellow to 
a pale sea-green, while the lower basins and 
ledges, where the water has cooled in its de- 
scent, present the dark yellow, orange and 
reddish-brown tints. The terraces appear at 
the best, perhaps, in the late afternoon when 
the softer sunlight is reflected back with a 
beauty comparable to a most glorious sunset. 
There are a number of side trips that may 
be taken from Mammoth Hot Springs and it 
is unfortunate that the majority of visitors 
to this park fail to avail themselves of this 
privilege. By following a definite schedule 
and a beaten path it is possible to "go through" 
the park in five days, but, in doing so, you 



168 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

see only the curious things and miss many 
of the most attractive features. People are 
so intent on seeing the geysers, hot springs, 
mud volcanoes, and so forth, that they lose 
sight entirely of the possibility of taking in at 
the same time some of the most beautiful 
scenery to be had anywhere in America. There 
is a wonderful trip for one day's riding or 
walking, from this hotel, through the middle 
canyon of the Gardiner River. The trail leads 
over the shoulder of Mt. Bunsen, passing the 
Buffalo corral, and probably encountering a 
herd of Elk and some Deer on the way, 
through a wild, forest-clad canyon at the upper 
end of which is a cataract (Osprey Falls) 
with a drop of 150 feet, and thence to the 
Golden Gate Boad. In some respects this 
canyon is as pretty as the canyon of the Yel- 
lowstone River and it is a great pity so few 
people have ever seen it or even heard of its 
existence. Electric Peak and Mt. Everts are 
two other mountains that offer themselves to 
the climber and lover of the beautiful. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 169 

From Mammoth Hot Springs to the Upper 
Geyser Basin, home of "Old Faithful," is a 
journey of 49 miles now made easily in half 
a day by the automobile busses. The first 
few miles are taken slowly because they mean 
a steady climb uphill, but the scenery by the 
wayside is quite interesting. A small herd of 
Buffalo may be seen in the meadows just 
beyond the Hot Spring Terraces; the princi- 
pal corral, which embraces the second largest 
herd of Bison now to be found in the United 
States, is on a high plateau about 30 miles 
farther back in the park. This excellent road 
over Terrace Mountain was constructed by the 
Army Engineers, under General Hiram 
Chittenden, and is a monument to his genius 
and their labors, especially the concrete Via- 
duct that carries it through the canyon on one 
side of the mountain where a foothold could 
not otherwise be obtained. 

The first unusual phenomenon encountered 
is a vast field of travertine rock to which the 
name of "The Hoodoos" has been given; sev- 



170 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

eral acres of ground covered with massive 
blocks of silvery gray rock, tumbled about and 
piled up in the most confused manner. The 
altitude is about 7000 feet, nearly 1000 feet 
higher than the Hot Springs basin, and there 
are two possible explanations for the presence 
of these rocks. They may have been thrown 
down from higher levels by some violent earth- 
quake shock, accompanied by powerful lateral 
thrusts that smashed them into such irregular 
shapes. Or, it is possible that this area was 
once the site of hot springs siinilar to those 
now at work lower down, and, having become 
exhausted, the shell of these immense caverns 
collapsed under external pressure. There is 
an Indian legend of some form of cataclysm in 
this vicinity, with the loss of many lives in the 
Shoshone tribe, but nothing clear as to the true 
nature of the action. A portion of the road 
is cut through this material and the great 
columns on either side have been named the 
"Silver Gate." Half a mile further, the Via- 
duct is crossed and the road winds through the 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 17l 

canyon produced by Glen Creek, with Terrace 
Mountain on the right hand and Mt. Bunsen 
on the opposite side of the stream. This nar- 
row way is the "Golden Gate," in considera- 
tion of the peculiar color of the rocky walls ; a 
beautiful golden brown shot with yellow and 
green, due to the growth of a fine moss on the 
rock surface. At the south end of this can- 
yon is a pretty little waterfall (Rustic Falls), 
where Glen Creek makes its entrance. 

Passing out of this canyon you emerge upon 
a high, level i)lateau. In all directions, and 
at no very great distance, the higher peaks of 
the Gallatin Range are visible; many of them 
snow-capped even in summer. Electric Peak, 
at the extreme north end of this line, is the 
highest mountain in the Park and is that same 
peak that seemed so close to the Gardiner 
entrance. Half way to Norris a halt is made 
at a platform on the left of the road, to drink 
from the Apollinaris Spring. The water is 
very cold and refreshing and it is said that 



172 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

chemical analysis has shown it to be practically 
the same in quality and purity as that obtained 
from the world famous springs of the same 
name in Europe. The principal difference ob- 
served by the tourist is that whereas the For- 
eign Government bottles, sells and derives 
a large revenue from its natural springs, the 
United States Government wastefully neglects 
such natural resources and buys foreign waters 
at a fancy price while her own free supply 
runs as freely into the sea. 

Two miles beyond this you will pass a very 
remarkable sight ; the Obsidian Cliffs, a moun- 
tain of shiny black glass. Obsidian is glass of 
volcanic origin and it is interesting to consider 
the degree of heat that must have been neces- 
sary and the force required to produce and 
throw up a mountain of such substance. It 
was formerly used by the Indians for arrow 
heads, because of its hardness, and this was 
one of the few districts in the park they were 
accustomed to visit in olden times. The road 
engineers met with great difficulty in passing 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 173 

this point, it being impossible to break up the 
glass rock with any ordinary implements, and 
they finally resorted to the novel method of 
building fires on it to heat it up and then 
throwing streams of cold water on the heated 
portions; the sudden changes caused it to 
crack. 

Twin Lakes, two very pretty pools, next 
attract attention because of a difference in 
color, in spite of the fact that they are in close 
apposition and are joined together by a small 
canal. One presents a pale grayish-green hue 
while the other is much darker, rather a bluish 
tint; the difference being due undoubtedly to 
the greater depth of the latter. The Devil's 
Frying Pan is a peculiar formation — about an 
acre of this travertine crust, broken in many 
places, in which numerous hot springs are bub- 
bling — deriving its name from the constant 
stewing and sizzling of the water through and 
over the crust. 

At Norris Geyser Basin you will meet your 
first Geyser and become acquainted with what 



174 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

is perhaps the most marvelous of the active 
phenomena of this park. In a sense, the Hot 
Springs, Hot Pools, Paint Pots, Steam Vents 
and Geysers are all alike — the same natural 
elements, water and heat, are the principal 
factors — but how differently they appear and 
how differently these elements act mider the 
varying conditions. The hot springs and their 
outgrowth, the terraces, have already been ex- 
plained and the action of a geyser and the 
process of natural paint mixing will be, but 
it may be better to leave these demonstrations 
until the most perfect specimens of each are 
met with in the course of this trip. 

Norris Geyser Basin consists of a vast area, 
several hundred acres in extent, of what looks 
like level white sandstone dotted all over with 
bubbling hot pools and springs, with here and 
there, at varying intervals, eruptive geysers of 
different sizes and power. The surface layer, 
or crust of the "formation," is apparently very 
thin and a board walk has been laid over it 
from the hotel to the road at the far side. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 175 

Walking over this you can not help feeling 
that the formation is like an immense stewing 
pie with a thin, crisp crust. The hot water 
is boiling up under and beside the boards, 
spirting up in little jets in some places. A cane 
may easily be thrust through the crust in spots, 
and it is unsafe to step off the boards except 
under the guidance of one familiar with local 
conditions. The color of the many pools is of 
that peculiar shade difficult to say whether it is 
pale blue or pale green, and their beauty is in 
some instances enhanced by a border of old 
rose, or of deep orange hue, produced by the 
deposit around the rim of chemical substances 
or the growth of algea; where copper and 
iron salts are abundant in the water the pool 
margins and the beds of the rivulets running 
from them present brilliant dark green or red- 
brown colors. 

Within a few feet of the board walk is one 
of the most interesting of all the geysers in the 
park — Old Constant ; at intervals of five min- 
utes the eruptions take place, the water in the 



176 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

pool will begin to show disturbance, there is an 
appearance of boiling near the surface, and 
suddenly, a column of water is tlirown up into 
the air, the fountain action lasting about one 
minute and being followed by another period 
of quiescence. The constancy with which the 
process is repeated explains the origin of the 
name given this geyser. Further on is another 
geyser bearing the name of the Minute Man, 
but in this case, the geyser has not lived up to 
expectations; after many years of a regular 
course of life it has recently changed its habits 
and, instead of acting at minute intervals it 
now breaks forth at very irregular periods and 
ejects but a small stream of water in compari- 
son with its old record. 

At the end of the board walk a series of 
steps leads up to the road and in the bank, 
just beside this ladder and platform arrange- 
ment, is the black mouth of a dark cavern from 
which steam is emitted with a terrific roaring 
sound like the exhaust of a hea\y railroad 
engine. In fact, the Black Growler is heard 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 177 

long before it can be seen and the first impres- 
sion produced by the noise is that there must 
be a train somewhere near. The Steam Vent, 
of which the Black Growler is a perfect exam- 
ple, is but another type of the general species 
of natural eruptive forces. In the Hot Pools 
and Springs the water is sent to the surface 
with but little force ; in the Geysers, a volume 
of water is ejected forcibly by a sudden out- 
burst of accumulated power; the Mud Vol- 
canoes exhibit a constant or repeated explo- 
sion of force acting upon a mixture of earth 
and water ; the Paint Pots show the ebullition 
of heat through a clay mass of putty-like con- 
sistency; and the Steam Vent is simply escap- 
ing force in the form of heat that has nothing 
to resist it, there being no water nor mud to 
throw out. 

On the "Formation" at Norris Geyser Basin 
conditions change frequently, it is said by 
some, but there are probably no very pro- 
nounced changes save over a long period of 
years. The Steam Vent of today may be the 



178 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

exhausted Geyser of some distant yesterday, 
the supply of water having failed; a Geyser 
that has been acting with perfect regularity 
for numberless years, like the Minute Man, 
may suddenly change its habits because of a 
diminution of its underground supply of water 
or the altering of heat forces beneath it, or 
both factors playing a part ; a Geyser may be- 
come exhausted, remain quiet for a consider- 
able period, and then unexpectedly resume 
activity; new Geysers, new Vents, and new 
Springs appear as old ones disappear or be- 
come altered; and all this is but the eternal 
change attendant upon evolution. 

The effect of walking across this formation 
for the first time and of considering its mar- 
velous construction and activity is indescrib- 
able. Keeping in mind the plain, visible, un- 
controvertible scientific facts, thoughts will 
dwell upon the character of the invisible and 
unknown influence behind it all, and it is dif- 
ficult to suppress entirely a superstitious feel- 
ing. You may recall some of the sermons that 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 179 

were popular a decade or so ago, in which the 
fiery furnace of Hell was so eloquently de- 
scribed that the odor of brimstone was almost 
perceptible. What would one of those old- 
time preachers, with his ideas of future punish- 
ment, think of this region? Would it be to 
him an ocular demonstration of his theory of 
subterranean horrors? It must be confessed 
there is enough of the suggestive element pres- 
ent to justify him in thoughtful consideration. 
The air is redolent with the odor of sulphur, 
the earth is warm to the touch, there is plenty 
of evidence of an extreme and inexhaustible 
supply of heat somewhere below, the region 
round about is arid and forbidding in appear- 
ance, trees are the mere ghosts of trees for 
their foliage has been destroyed wherever 
stricken by the heat and acid sulphur fumes; 
in fact, the entu'e scene is one of weird, mys- 
terious and unnatural devastation. Yellow- 
stone has been spoken of as a Fairyland. It is 
that in a sense, but not in the same sense you 
would employ the term in speaking of 



180 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

Yosemite, for instance ; it is rather a weirdness, 
a sense of something unnatural or supernat- 
ural, that is uppermost. 

The drive of 20 miles from Norris to the 
Lower Geyser Basin (Old Fountain Hotel) 
is through one of the most attractive portions 
of the Park. For the first 10 miles the road 
runs parallel with the Gibbon River and for 
half of that distance between the walls of the 
Gibbon Canyon; characterized by many re- 
markably beautiful views. Numerous bridges 
permit the frequent crossing of this rapidly 
flowing stream as the road winds through the 
canyon, occupying first one then the other bank 
of the river, as necessity requires. At the end 
of the canyon, after passing the Gibbon Falls, 
the road leads over a long stretch of rolling, 
sandy country covered with a dense growth 
of lodge-pole pine. The descent on the other 
side of the mountain is into the valley of the 
Firehole River, and one of its tributaries, Nez 
Perce Creek, is forded on the approach to the 
Fountain Hotel. All these streams abound in 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 181 

Eastern Brook, Loch Levin and Rainbow 
trout. 

The chief attractions of the Lower Geyser 
Basin are the Mammoth Paint Pots, the Old 
Fountain Geyser and a curious phenomenon to 
be observed at Firehole Lake — the appearance 
of flames under water. The Paint Pots at this 
point vie in importance with those to be seen 
later at Thumb Station, on the shore of Yel- 
lowstone Lake; at times the colors seem less 
vivid and the stewing less active. The Foun- 
tain Geyser is far less interesting now than 
many others; once noted for the large quanti- 
ties of water thrown out and the height to 
which it was thrown, it has in recent years 
become quite erratic. Observation of flames 
under the water of Firehole Lake depends 
somewhat upon atmospheric conditions and to 
some extent upon securing an advantageous 
position. The visit of inspection is usually 
made in the early morning by walking to the 
western end of the lake. The lake is fed by a 
deep-seated spring, located near the eastern 



182 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

end, and the bubbles of hot air arising through 
the clear water tend to amalgamate, like rain- 
drops coursing down a pane of glass, into large 
globules. If there is no wind to disturb the 
surface of the water, and the sunlight falls at 
the proper angle upon the submerged balloon 
of gas, the picture is that of an ascending 
flame. 

The country between Fountain and the Old 
Faithful Inn, at the far end of the Upper 
Geyser Basin, a distance of 9 miles, is in real- 
ity a continuous area of geyser and hot spring 
formation. It would be superfluous to men- 
tion them all by name, but a few deserve spe- 
cial consideration. The Great Fountain 
Geyser, because of its pretty pool and the 
delicate tracery of its formation; the White 
Dome, an immense, dome-shaped cone; the 
Pink Cone, so-called because of its color; and 
Excelsior Geyser, now inactive but reputed to 
have been the largest geyser in the park. The 
very names — Prismatic Lake, Turquoise 
Spring, Sunset Lake, Rainbow, Emerald and 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 183 

Sapphire Pools, and Biscuit Basin — signify 
the characteristics or attributes that have made 
some of the pools noteworthy. The same may 
be said of Castle, Sponge, Grotto, Bee-Hive 
and many other geysers. Those which stand 
out distinctively enough to require special con- 
sideration are: Turquoise Spring, Prismatic 
Lake, Morning Glory Pool and Old Faithful 
Geyser. 

The Morning Glory, if seen under favorable 
circumstances, commands admiration. The 
circumference of the pool is marked by in- 
dentations of such character as to suggest, to- 
gether with the convolvulus formation of the 
depth, the open morning glory and, in the 
bright light of a clear day the pronounced blue 
of the deep central portion fades off gradually 
into a pale green blue of the shallower water 
under the ledges of the marginal crust. If 
the day chances to be a cold one and condensed 
steam clouds hang over these springs and pools 
the color effect is decidedly marred and the 
many visitors on such days get the idea that 



184 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

they have been misinformed by friends and 
lecturers as to the beauty of the color scheme. 
It is true that some picture postcards and some 
lantern slides exhibited have grossly exag- 
gerated the color of these waters as well as the 
balance of the scenery, but it is equally true 
that under proper conditions of light and tem- 
perature the springs and pools present a series 
of fascinating colors. Two of the most beau- 
tiful things to be seen in Yellowstone Park 
are the Turquoise Spring and Prismatic Lake. 
There is no possibility of exaggerating the 
beauty or the perfection of coloring in either 
of these bodies of water. The former is a 
large pool of deep water with a rich turquoise 
color and a border of old rose. Prismatic 
Lake is an expansive sheet of water, rather 
shallow, I believe, at least it is for some dis- 
tance from its shore line, with a most remark- 
able play of colors upon its surface, really 
representing most of the tints of the spectrum. 
So intense are some of these colors that as the 
wind blows the steam clouds over the surface. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 185 

and the color is reflected back into these clouds, 
the steam itself appears to be also colored. 

Old Faithful is all that its name implies. 
Mr. Edward Frank Allen, the editor of 
TRAVEL, has said of it: "Other geysers may 
be more powerful, others may throw their water 
higher, others may have more beautiful craters, 
but Old Faithful has some of each of these 
qualities and, in addition, it plays often and 
with regularity. It had the honor of welcom- 
ing the first explorer, and never since that day 
has it failed any tourist that cared to look at 
it." With unfailing regularity, almost the 
precision of clock work, the eruptions of this 
geyser recur at intervals of seventy minutes 
and this rhythmic repetition has probably per- 
sisted for many centuries. Whether seen in 
action at midday, in the late afternoon when 
the rays of a setting sun make rainbows in its 
cloud of mist, or in the light of a full moon, 
it is an interesting and fascinating sight. But 
it is most effective perhaps at night, when 
under the added charm of moonlight and mys- 



186 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

tery, the peculiar romance of the performance 
harmonizes so perfectly with the weird sur- 
roundings. 

The nature and activities of Hot Springs, 
Hot Pools, Steam Vents, Mud Volcanoes, 
Paint Pots, and Terrace Formations have 
been explained as evidences of different de- 
grees of subterranean heat acting upon dif- 
ferent kinds and sources of subterranean water 
supplies under varying conditions, and the 
belief stated that geysers belong also to this 
group of phenomena. The only one of these 
performances that is at all difficult to compre- 
hend is the geyser action, and even scientists 
have not been entirely in accord in their theo- 
retic explanations of this. It would be con- 
fusing to dwell upon the slight differences of 
opinion existing among geologists concerning 
the exact modus operandi of a geyser so, for 
the sake of clearness as well as brevity, let us 
consider in the simplest terms the most gen- 
erally accepted theory of the construction and 
action of these marvels of nature, of which 




By Ilaynfs, SI. Piul. 



OLIi FAITHI LI, C.EV-ER 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 187 

Old Faithful is the most perfect of the world's 
known examples. 

In the first place, there are certain charac- 
teristics essential to all geysers. Almost the 
first noticeable thing on approaching a geyser 
basin is that it is composed of a different sub- 
stance from that which made up the Terrace 
Formations. In the latter case the basic sub- 
stance was a soft, chalky white limestone; 
whereas the geyser basic formation is a hard, 
flint-like greyish substance. Instead of soft 
limestone it consists of Silicon, the chemical 
basis of sand. It is essential that it should be 
a hard, resistant substance because the geyser 
wall must sustain a strain of great force. 
Nearly all geysers have a cone-shaped projec- 
tion above the surface of the earth, with a 
crater opening at the top. It is not necessary 
that the cone should be of any definite size nor 
that it should be exactly conical; there are 
geysers with large open mouths and crater rims 
that are not much raised above the surface, but, 
even they comply with the general rule, if ex- 



188 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

amined closely, and vary only in the size of 
the "cone" rather than in its principle. The 
third, and final, essential is a tube or set of 
tubular prolongations extending down into the 
earth. These tubes receive the water supply 
of the geyser and reach down to the source of 
heat that produces the geyser action. 

According to the Bunsen theory, the tubes 
receive their water supply from some subter- 
ranean source and the action of heat upon the 
deep portions of these tubes causes the water 
to boil at the point acted upon. The boiling 
point of water is higher below the earth's sur- 
face than at or above that level, increasing with 
the greater depth. As the water reaches its 
boiling point, the steam formed attempts to 
escape through the upper laj'-ers of cooler 
water. Though it loses little or nothing in 
heat quality as it rises, because of the steadily 
diminishing boiling point, much of it is ab- 
sorbed until, in fact, the upper layers be- 
come saturated. Then, the contmually forming 
steam begins to accumulate below. As its 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 189 

power increases, it endeavors to lift the weight 
of water above it, just as steam in an engine 
boiler affects the safety valve, and it ultimately 
begins to force some of the water from the 
mouth of the crater. At first there is a slow 
outflow, but as this escaping water only dimin- 
ishes the weight of the column of water in the 
tube, and the power is increasing, the latter 
gains impetus and is soon able to force the 
remaining water out in a jet that may leap a 
considerable distance into the air. Thus Old 
Faithful, in the beginning of an eruption, 
throws its water only three or four feet, but 
soon it spouts more actively and ultimately 
reaches a height of 150 feet. 

In the case of geysers like Old Faithful, 
whose eruptions recur with regular periodicity, 
the existence of an underground source of 
water supp]-f, perhaps a lake, must be as- 
sumed, witli an opening of definite size into 
the geyser tube to permit the intake of the 
required amount of water within a definite 
time, so that for thousands of years it has dis- 



190 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

charged 250,000 gallons of water approxi- 
mately every hour. The smaller and more 
irregularly acting geysers have a less constant 
source of supply, being dependent probably 
upon springs or upon seepage from the surface 
through cracks into the tubes. 

Not the least interesting feature of a trip 
through Yellowstone Park is the native wild 
animal life and it is a subject for congratula- 
tion that the United States has adopted such 
active measures here, and in the other national 
parks, to preserve and protect the animals and 
birds unmolested. The already large herd of 
buffalo is rapidly increasing with each passing 
year. This noble animal, that once roamed in 
countless thousands over our western prairies, 
was threatened with extinction but a few years 
ago. The Deer and Elk are numbered by the 
thousand and even the hurried tourist in his 
rapid course through the park is certain to see 
one or more daily. Black and Brown Bears, 
occasionally the Grizzly, will be seen in the 
region of Old Faithful Inn or the Lake Hotel; 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 191 

the former have become to some extent scav- 
engers of the wood and haunt the garbage pile 
near the large hostelries. Some of them are 
sufficiently tame to approach and take sugar 
or other edibles from your hand. Now and 
then an aggressive marauder of the species 
will prove less docile and it is always danger- 
ous to get between a mother bear and her cubs. 
Usually there is a guard on duty at the sites 
most frequented by the bears, to protect the 
over inquisitive tourist, but it is well to re- 
member the protective care of the mother for 
her young in case you unexpectedly encounter 
a bear along any of the paths or roads of these 
mountains. 

The birds of the Park embrace the Osprey, 
chiefly seen about the high peaks; Pelicans, 
Sea Gulls, Geese and Ducks, about Lakes 
Yellowstone, Lewis and Shoshone; Grouse, 
Pheasants, Blue Jays, Robins, Magpies, 
Larks and Blackbirds. 

Fish abound in all the streams and can actu- 
ally be seen from the passing coach in Yellow- 



192 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

stone River. In Clear Creek and Columbine 
Creek, two tributaries of Lake Yellowstone, 
trout are so tbick and tbe water so clear tbat 
you can stand on tbe bank and watcb every 
maneuver of the fisb as be plays for tbe fly or 
bait cast before bim. Fisbing is tbe only form 
of bunting permitted witbin tbe park pre- 
cincts; tbe sbooting or trapping of birds or 
animals is strictly forbidden. Tbe Fisb Com- 
mission bas stocked Lake Yellowstone and its 
neigbboring creeks witb yellow speckled cut- 
throat trout and tbe mere tyro can catch his 
allowance in those streams any day witbin two 
hours. Tbe Madison River and other streams 
on the western side of tbe Park produce tbe 
rainbow and Loch Levin varieties of trout; 
rather better sport because they are gamer 
fighters. Big game may be bunted in the 
mountains bordering upon the Park and there 
are several popular resorts, such as Sheffield's 
to the south, in tbe Jackson Hole country, tbat 
are well known to the sportsmen. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 193 

In the course of the drive from Upper Gey- 
ser Basin to the Thumb of Yellowstone Lake 
(the name Thumb having been given to this 
portion of the Lake because the conformation 
of the shore line here resembles the thumb in 
its relation to the hand, as represented by the 
main body of the Lake) the Continental 
Divide has to be crossed twice, the altitude in 
each instance being something over 8200 feet. 
The water from some small lakes in this region 
flows off in rivulets to the eastward and others 
to the westward slope, while a few, of which 
Lake Isa is an example, may in the springtime 
drain in both directions, part of the water find- 
ing its way to the broad Atlantic while another 
portion can be traced to the Pacific Ocean. 
Lake Isa can be seen from the road in passing 
and in early summer is covered with water 
lilies. 

The first part of this drive is beside the 
Firehole River and a stop is usually made 
just a few miles from Old Faithful to see the 
Keppler Cascades, from a platform that has 



194 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

been constructed out over the stream. There 
are numerous lakes within the domain of 
Yellowstone Park and the two largest, Lake 
Shoshone and Lake Yellowstone, are each in 
turn to be seen from high points of the road 
on this day's riding. The former is viewed 
from the top of the divide and though it is 
twenty miles distant it makes a charming pic- 
ture, so wonderful is its setting in the high 
mountains. Yellowstone Lake is a beautiful 
body of water and many are tempted to leave 
the coaches at Thumb Station and to break the 
monotony of the journey by a boat trip across 
the Lake to the Yellowstone Lake Hotel. It 
is a pleasant sixteen miles' sail; as against a 
nineteen mile ride around the head of the Lake, 
over a road that presents few points of special 
interest and is often rather dusty. 

The Lake shore at Thumb has a diversified 
character and presents several special features. 
In the first place, the Paint Pots at this point 
appear to be more active than those observed 
at Fountain. In an area of perhaps 100 feet 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 195 

square is a mass cf so-called paint, a clay sub- 
stance of about the consistency of a well-mixed 
white lead, or a well-kneaded dough, and the 
entire bed is in constant motion, heaving mildly 
like the billows of the sea. In the bright sun- 
light the paint varies in color from drab to a 
pale rose tint. Every few seconds, from some 
part of the bed, a small mass will be thrown 
up into the air to the height of two or three 
feet by the ebullitionary force from below. 
The term "paint pots" was a well chosen simile, 
for the mass strikingly resembles a very thick 
paint and the action is typical of the contents 
being mixed or stirred by some unseen power. 
Between the paint pot enclosure and the shore 
there are a few small springs whose outflow 
spreads over the intervening soil, on its way 
to the Lake, depositing its chemical substances 
and encouraging the growth of algeous matter ; 
producing a bit of prettily colored beach 
similar to the formation on the banks of the 
Firehole River. Scarcely a hundred yards 
away and directly on the edge of the Lake 



196 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

is an extinct geyser mound, called the Fishing 
Cone. While it is no longer subject to erup- 
tions, it still contains steaming hot water and 
it is a fact that standing beside it you may 
catch a trout in the lake and, swinging about, 
dip your fish into the cone crater and, after 
a few moments, remove the cooked fish from 
your hook. 

The road turns abruptly at Thumb and runs 
in a northerly direction, for the return towards 
Gardiner commences at this point. The shore 
of the Lake is followed for about five miles and 
then, as another shoulder of the mountain has 
to be crossed, the climb back to an altitude of 
8000 feet must be made. There are many 
pretty views of the neighboring mountains and 
glimpses of the Lake through vistas in the 
forest. The trees are principally Indian or 
Lodge-pole Pine, growing in dense forest 
formation. 

Of all the places in the park that might 
entice one to stop over for a time, none seems 
more attractive than the hotel at Lake Station. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 197 

Here is an excellent hotel, of the old continen- 
tal style of architecture, on the edge of a beau- 
tiful lake dotted with islands and surrounded 
by snow-capped mountains. Yellowstone Lake 
is the highest body of water of its size in the 
world; it has an elevation of 7700 feet, is ten 
miles wide and nearly thirty miles long. The 
possibility of boating upon this Lake, of ex- 
plorations into the numerous creeks that sup- 
ply it, of tramps around its shore line by trails, 
the fishing in its waters, and the marvelously 
beautiful views obtainable from any point in 
the vicinity make this a spot of unending de- 
lights. And, even more, it happens to be a 
good central point from which to make ex- 
cursions to interesting regions outside the 
usual tour of the park. For instance, from 
here you can make the trip to the Jackson 
Hole country and, if the time can be spared, 
this could certainly be included in any trip 
through Yellowstone. From Lake to Thumb 
and then south, the road runs beside the Lewis 
River and Lake to Jackson Lake, through one 



198 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

of the most beautiful regions imaginable. The 
Cjjen fields and forest floors are covered by 
acres of the most wonderful flowers ; extensive 
patches of Paint Brush of the deepest red, For- 
get-me-nots, Lupine, Bluebells, and many- 
others according to the season. And then, ar- 
rived at Sheffield's Lodge, outside the park, to 
rest at the foot of the Grand Tetons ; that of it- 
self is worth all of the time and money ex- 
pended upon the trip. To camp anywhere in 
this portion of the park is a supreme delight. 

The short ride from Lake Station to the 
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is also 
through a fine country. There are very few 
curiosities to attract attention; perhaps only 
two that require mention. The Mud Volcano 
is considered by many to be one of the most 
curious and interesting of the phenomena in 
the park. It may be best described by com- 
parison with an immense bowl hollowed out 
of the hillside, partially filled with black mud 
and having a large opening in the distal side 
near the bottom. This opening is in fact the 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 199 

mouth of a steam vent and as the steam and 
hot water is spasmodically injected into the 
bowl, the mud is thrown up and towards its 
opposite side ; naturally, it slops back and this 
performance is constantly repeated. The 
Grotto Spring, or the Dragon's Mouth, as it 
is more appropriately named, is a fissure in the 
granite rock which has been rendered pic- 
turesque by the green coloring of the rocks 
surrounding it and from which there issues at 
brief intervals a small jet of hot water and 
steam. The water comes from a small spring 
in the rocks and is ejected by the steam in the 
form of a heated spray. You can approach 
closely and look into the grotto at the risk of 
nothing worse than a sprinkling of hot water. 
It requires no great stretch of the imagina- 
tion to conceive of it as a dragon. 

The ride across Hayden Valley, which is a 
charming meadow plateau, and beside the 
Yellowstone River is one continuous delight. 
The road follows the circuitous route of the 
river, the water of which is as clear as crystal. 



200 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

and even from the coach you can see the trout 
swimming gracefully or splashing about in 
their efforts to catch flies or water bugs. 
When the Chittenden Bridge is reached, about 
where the cascades of the river begin, the main 
road is left for a visit to Artist's Point, so 
that you may have j^our first view of the great 
Yellowstone Falls from that most impressive 
point. It was this spot that Thomas Moran 
chose from which to paint his celebrated pic- 
ture that now hangs in the Capitol building 
at Washington. In a pamphlet recently issued 
by the Government is the following descrip- 
tion of the view from Inspiration Point, but 
it serves equally well to illustrate the beauty 
of the artist's point of view: "Looking a 
thousand feet almost vertically down upon the 
foaming Yellowstone River, and southward 
three miles to the great Falls, the hushed ob- 
server sees spread before him the most glori- 
ous kaleidoscope of color he will ever see in 
nature. The steep slopes are inconceivably 
carved by the frost and erosion of the ages. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 201 

Sometimes they lay in straight lines at easy 
angles, from which jut high rocky promi- 
nences. Sometimes they seem carved from the 
side walls. Here and there jagged, rocky 
needles rise perpendicularly like Gothic spires. 
And the whole is colored perfectly and vividly 
as the field of a kaleidoscope, streaked and 
spotted and stratified in every shade from the 
deepest orange to the faintest lemon, from 
deep carmine through all the brick reds to the 
softest pinks, from black through all the grays 
and pearls to glistening white. The greens 
are furnished by the dark pines above, the 
lighter shades a growth caught here and there 
in soft masses on the gentler slopes and the 
foaming greens of the plunging river so far 
below. The blues, ever changing, are found 
in the dome of the sky overhead.'* 

General Chittenden, who probably did more 
than any other one man to make the park 
what it is today and whose book, entitled, 
"Yellowstone National Park," is a masterpiece 
of descriptive literature, says of the Canyon: 



202 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

"There are three distinct features which unite 
their pecuhar glories to enhance the beauty 
of this Canyon. These are the Canyon itself, 
the waterfall at its head, and the river below." 
It is the volcanic rock through which the 
river has cut its way that gives the Grand 
Canyon its distinctive character. The hue has 
no existence which cannot be found there. 
"Hung up and let down and spread abroad 
are all the colors of the land, sea and sky," 
says Talmadge, without hyperbole. From the 
dark, forest-bordered brink, the sides descend 
for the most part with the natural slope of the 
loose rock, but frequently broken by vertical 
ledges and isolated pinnacles, which give a cas- 
tellated and romantic air to the whole. Eagles 
build their nests here, and soar midway through 
the vast chasm, far below the beholder. The 
more prominent of the projecting ledges cause 
many turns in the course of the Canyon, and 
give numerous vantage places for sight-seeing. 
Lookout Point is one of these, half a mile be- 
low the Lower Falls. Inspiration Point, some 




Photo by Gijlord. Rep.-oJuced hy courtesy of National 
Park Service. 



GRAND CANYON AND GREAT FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 203 

two miles farther down, is another. The gor- 
geous coloring of the Canyon walls does not 
extend through its entire length of twenty- 
miles. In the lower portion, the forests have 
crept well down to the water's edge. Still, it 
is everywhere an extremely beautiful and im- 
pressive sight. Along the bottom of the Can- 
yon, numerous steam vents can be seen, one 
of which, it is said, exhibits geyseric action. 

The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone must 
be placed in the front rank of similar phe- 
nomena. It carries not one-twentieth of the 
water of Niagara, but Niagara is in no single 
part so beautiful. Its descent is very 
regular, slightly broken by a point of 
rock on the right bank. A third of 
the Fall is hidden behind the vast cloud of 
spray which forever conceals the mad play 
of the waters beneath ; but the mighty turmoil 
of that recess in the rocks may be judged from 
the deep-toned thunder which rises in ceaseless 
cadence and jars the air for miles around. 



204 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

To many visitors, the stream far down in the 
bottom of the Canyon is the crowning beauty 
of the whole scene. It is so distant that its 
rapid course is apparently diminished to the 
gentlest movement, and its continuous roar to 
the subdued murmur of the pine forests. Its 
winding, hide-and-seek course, its dark surface 
where the shadows cover it, its bright limpid 
green under the play of the sunlight, its ever 
recurring foamy white patches, and particu- 
larly its display .of life where all around is 
silent and motionless, make it a thing of en- 
trancing beauty to all who behold it. 

It is not strange that this Canyon has been 
a theme for writer, painter and photographer 
from the day of its discovery to the present 
time. But at first thought it is strange that all 
attempts to portray its beauties are less satis- 
factory than those pertaining to any other fea- 
ture of the park. The artist Moran acknowl- 
edged that "its beautiful tints were beyond the 
reach of human art." And General Sherman 
said of this artist's celebrated, effort, "The 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 205 

painting by Moran in the Capitol is good, but 
painting and words are unequal to the sub- 
ject." "In photography, the number of pic- 
tures by professional and amateur artists that 
have been made of this Canyon is prodigious, 
but photography can only produce the form ; it 
is powerless in the presence of such an array of 
colors as here exists." The paragraph just 
quoted was written before the day when the 
photographing of objects in their true colors 
had become an accomplished fact. Now this 
marvelous scene has been taken by natural 
color photography; every shade of color per- 
manently fixed on the photographic plate 
exactly as they appeared to the eye of the 
observer. 

In refraining from an attempt to give a 
description of the Canyon I have been will- 
ing to join Folsom, who first wrote of it, that 
"so far as I am concerned, language is en- 
tirely inadequate to convey a just concep- 
tion of the awful grandeur and sublimity 
of this masterpiece of nature's handiwork." 



206 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

Many of the published descriptions have been 
gross exaggerations, both as regards the color 
of the rocks and general beauty of the Canyon. 
Those quoted here seem to be entirely fair and 
to present about as accurate a word picture as 
can be honestly composed. This Canyon is 
another spot in Yellowstone Park where one 
might profitably spend an indefinite vacation 
period. The Hot Spring region and the Gey- 
ser Basins present unusual and interesting phe- 
nomena but such freak features of nature, 
while impressive in their beautj^ or marvelous 
activities, do not carry the appeal that makes 
one desire to linger in the vicinity. At the Can- 
yon it is different and the effect is noticeable 
upon the great majority of tourists. The crea- 
ture comforts offered by one of the best hotels 
in the world (and the establishment of such 
perfect hotel conditions in such a place is not 
the least of the park wonders) , the stimulating 
climatic influence of the high altitude, the tran- 
quil, peaceful charm of the upper j^ortion of 
the River, the majesty and dignity of the cata- 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 207 

ract, the colorful beauty of the Canyon walls 
under changing light at different hours of the 
day, the restful, health-giving delight of the 
whole, produce a sense of contentment and 
happiness almost incomprehensible. 

Exit from Fairyland, as exemplified in 
Yellowstone Park, may be made either by re- 
turning from this point to Gardiner, the point 
of entrance used in this description, or by way 
of Cody, on the eastern boundary. If the first 
way be chosen, it is well to take the trip over 
Mt. Washburn ; this will be particularly worth 
while if you happen to be there in the latter 
part of July, when the wild flowers are in 
perfection of bloom. Many will prefer, how- 
ever, going out by the Cody route. The 
climax of a Park trip having been reached at 
the Canyon, the last day's journey in going 
out by Gardiner, is a gradual letting down 
once more to the ordinary fact of life. The 
Cody route, on the other hand, still holds some 
thrills even for the satisfied traveler. It is not 
a matter for comparison; it is simply different 



208 TOUR OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS 

from anything else yet seen. The road is over 
Sylvan Pass and through Shoshone Canyon 
and every mile of it is beautiful. Leaving 
the main road, between the Canyon and the 
Lake, the way is first through a mountain 
meadow land and then climbs to an altitude of 
9500 feet on the crest of the ridge. Sylvan 
Lake is passed, reluctantly, for you would nat- 
urally desire to tarry in the vicinity of such 
a retreat, and then the road winds down again 
into the Canyon of the Shoshone Kiver. 

The upper portion of the Shoshone Canyon 
is walled in by red sandstone rocks that time 
and the elements have played queer pranks 
with. For a distance of 10 miles the guide is 
kept busy pointing out to you fancied resem- 
blances in the rocks to well known or historic 
characters, or to the commoner animals. The 
hunting lodge of the late "Buffalo Bill," after 
whom the city of Cody is named, is passed 
and the lower part of the canyon is found to 
be a wild, rugged granite walled gorge. An 
artificial lake has been formed by the construe- 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 209 

tion of a dam in the river, a lake having a 
surface of 10 square miles and a depth, at some 
points, of 325 feet, so you can imagine the vast 
quantity of water held in reserve for irrigation 
purposes. , The ride through this canyon and 
on to Cody is thrillingly beautiful. 

Those who enter the Park from the east, 
at Cody, follow the same circle trip but visit 
the places in different order ; that is, they spend 
the first day at the Canyon of the Yellow- 
stone, the second on the way to Mammoth Hot 
Springs, and then proceed as described for the 
trip from that point around to Yellowstone 
Lake Station. Likewise, those entering from 
the west, at Yellowstone Station, make their 
visit to the Lower Geyser Basin first and then 
proceed around the circle, taking Old Faithful, 
Yellowstone Lake, the Canyon and so forth to 
Mammoth Hot Springs and out again at 
Yellowstone. 



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